Richard Hayes Phillips, whom Bob Fitrakis of the Free Press and I (for the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign) were paying to digitally photograph ballots from the 2004 election, was having difficulty gaining access to Clermont County ballots. I drove to Clermont County, just north of Cincinnati, and met with the Assistant County Prosecutor assigned to the BOE. Phillips and I then went into the room where the ballots had been counted and were stored. The episode is documented in Phillips book: Witness to a Crime. One of the altered Clermont County ballots appears on the cover of the book.

...that, unfortunately, had almost NO media coverage.

Last edited Fri Apr 5, 2013, 01:38 PM - Edit history (1)

Media coverage of our investigation and litigation could be a long thread itself.

Of course, Karl Rove had a sophisticated media control plan in play from the beginning. Prolonging the Iraq war provided cover: message to Kerry, the Dems, the FBI, and the publishers and political editors: Do you really want to question the legitimacy/integrity of the President and Commander in Chief at a time of war?

Professor Bob Fitrakis (with Harvey Wasserman & Steve Rosenfeld) had the first book out--comprehensive as to both the evidence of widespread vote switching, voter suppression and exit poll discrepancies. Our investigator Richard Phillips expressed unhappiness to the publisher of Bob's book that contained a number of articles written by Phillips that had already been published in the Free Press. The publisher, New Press, canceled the promotional budget for Bob's book. So, Bob had a major academic book publisher--but there was no normal professional promotion of the book. Richard's subsequent book provided a lot of detail and, of course the digital archive of actual 2004 ballots, but was self-published and promoted by Richard.

Bobby Kennedy's June 2006 Rolling Stone article was sensational, but not acknowledged and broadly shared as it should have been by the main stream media. Ohio's largest newspaper the Cleveland Plain Dealer went so far as to assure their readers that they had looked in the matter at the time, and there was nothing to it.

There was some (actually a lot of it: Bobby Kennedy, Jr's article contained a great many mainstream newspaper cites) courageous, aggressive, first-rate main stream media investigation and/or coverage, however it did not get passed on, around and repeated as when a major story builds a achieves critical mass. I attribute this to Rove's sophisticated containment strategy directed from his pivotal position within the White House.

We had many front page stories in the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, McClatchy News, New York Times etc. . . . just not together with legs so as to build and achieve critical mass. The New York Times acknowledged Bob Fitrakis' Free Press as a major Internet publication and source for news on the 2004 election. In the 2012 election the Free Press achieved main stream status by breaking multiple cutting edge stories that were picked up with attribution by major media like Forbes, Fox, CBS and others. And, Dr. Cynthia Boaz published an excellent preelection story in Huffington Post, including reporting upon Richard Charnin's cutting edge statistical evidence of multi-year, multi-state PResidential election vote count rigging.

Our side of the story is the only side that was thoroughly documented by a large number of independent documentary filmmakers and by evidence filed in court.

Critical mass for this subject has now been achieved through the ABC TV series SCANDAL which candidly exposes serial election theft and political assassination for all the world to see and discuss.

...What Really Happened in Ohio, two of R H Phillip's book (he gave a talk here in CA about his book several years ago,which I also attended) and most of the other articles you mentioned saved on an old hard drive.

I have yet to see SCANDAL...but I will check it out.

This post is a GREAT summary of media coverage in 2004. At the time, I was mostly following local Ohio news sources online. What I read there was shocking. I continue to believe the story will eventually be told. AND I remain a loyal Kerry supporter, because I think he is a man of integrity...and because he has relentlessly continued his fight to put our country on a better path (than that of GWB) since that 2004 election.

You are in for a real treat! The past episodes are available on the Internet.

the first I'm hearing of it, sorry for my ignorance

The first book out on this was What Happened in Ohio? by my colleague Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman and Steve Rosenfeld.

What Happened in Ohio? A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election, by Bob Fitrakis, Steven Rosenfeld, and Harvey Wasserman: $10 SPECIAL through freepress.org
Published by The New Press
"It is my professional opinion that these numbers are fraudulent." - STATISTICIAN RICHARD HAYES PHILIPS, PHD, IN REFERENCE TO OHIO'S 2004 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE COUNT, FROM HIS DEPOSITION IN THE MOSS V. BUSH LAWSUIT, WHICH REACHED THE OHIO SUPREME COURT

In the first comprehensive look at the most critical state's voting process in the 2004 presidential election, three pathbreaking investigative journalists (one a member of the legal team that sued the state of Ohio for election fraud), compile documentary evidence of massive potential theft and fraud in the presidential vote problems that may have changed the outcome of the presidential election in Ohio, and thus the nation.

What Happened in Ohio? includes trucking receipts that show voting machines were pulled back from minority districts; ballots that contain evidence of tampering; mathematical analysis demonstrating the statistical impossibility of voting totals; testimonials from hundreds of voters, campaign workers, and poll workers about conditions that effectively disenfranchised thousands of voters; copies of flyers instructing Democrats to "vote on Wednesday"; official letters sent to tens of thousands of longtime voters incorrectly informing them they had been deemed "inactive" and ineligible to vote; photos taken of the original exit poll data broadcast on election night before it was retroactively "corrected" by the networks; and much, much more.

For anyone suspicious of the Ohio vote, here's the evidence you've been waiting for.

work net any good fruit?

Last edited Mon May 13, 2013, 01:34 AM - Edit history (3)

Yes to both your questions:
1) New Press, the publisher of the book, raised seed money for litigation to preserve the 2004 Ohio ballots that were being threatened with destruction.
2) Fitrakis used his advance from the publisher to partially fund Phillips and others in the creation of a digital archive of the ballots, a part of which are appended as a CD to Phillips' later book, Witness to a Crime.
3) The filing of the litigation, King Lincoln Bronzeville NA et al v Blackwell received exclusive, same day as filing, coverage by the New York Times, giving national authoritative coverage to the problem of the rigging of Presidential elections in the U.S.
4) The federal court promptly issued an order to all 88 Ohio county boards of election to preserve their 2004 ballots beyond the 22 month period required by federal law.
5) Plaintiffs amended their suit to challenge the constitutionality of a partisan Republican voter ID law designed to suppress Democratic voters, associated their suit with new plaintiffs NE Oh Coalition of the Homeless OH making the same challenge, for whom the USDC SDOhio granted declaratory relief before the 2006 election.
6) The book and suit probably affected the 2006 election in which Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was the Republican Party candidate for Governor. Democrats won for Governor, SOS and AG--all offices affected by the scandal of the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio as described in the book and our suit.
7) The new Democratic AG negotiated a settlement concept that contemplated, among other things, the AG pursuing an investigation of the election irregularities in the 2004 Ohio election.
8) The Democratic SOS moved to lift the stay placed upon the litigation while the settlement was being worked out to get an order for an accounting of all 2004 ballots and the movement of all surviving ballots to Columbus under her custody and control.
9) We moved lift the stay for limited discovery to permit us to put together a RICO claim against Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce for engaging in a pattern of corrupt election activity and proceeded to take the deposition of Mike Connell, Karl Rove's IT guru pursuant to the order of US District Judge Solomon Oliver oft he Northern District of Ohio on the day before the 2008 general election.
10) We successfully served a deposition subpoena upon Karl Rove and document subpoenas upon the U. S. Chamber of Commerce before the 2010 general election with the cooperation of Defendant Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

The folks who are making trillions of dollars from government policies designed to serve them are spending billions of dollars to keep things going their way. They are spending billions on both sides of the political spectrum to constrain prosecutorial discretion against taking action against them and their public servants. They are spending on private public interest groups to pursue things other than election and other forms of fraud which are enriching them royally. They are using every kind countermeasure against those who might upset their apple carts. I believe the attorney Paul Minor of Mississippi, who took on the the tobacco companies, and Bill Larach of California who was taking on Enron, were targeted by Karl Rove for federal criminal prosecution and imprisoned to block them from helping to organize litigation against their 21st century organized criminal conspiracy. They have also arranged for the death, or attempts upon the lives of politicians and others who have stood in their way--President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. being the most notable examples from the last century.

This "evil empire" is no more impregnable to peaceful challenge than was the Soviet Union. It can be brought down and/or transformed quite readily by the truth of it becoming generally known. Public consciousness of it would simply make it unacceptable. Imagine the gratitude humanity would feel toward Karl Rove if he publicly confessed his fraudulent electoral conduct as he did on SCANDAL just the other night on ABC TV. These are crimes on a scale greater than those of the white minority in South Africa, where truth and reconciliation rather than jail were the necessary remedies.

did Kerry concede so quickly and without even a fight?

Particularly now that John Kerry is Secretary of State, he owes us and the world an explanation for that. Leading up to the 2004 election, George Soros argued that the election was a referendum upon the GW Bush/PNAC doctrine of preemptive war, and the American people needed to vote for Kerry to voice their disapproval of that doctrine. It was, and they did. And, this was important for our reputation as a law abiding nation. So, why didn't John Kerry fight?

Last edited Sat Mar 30, 2013, 02:45 PM - Edit history (1)

a healthy lead, woke up to him being declared the loser of Ohio. Wee hour shenanigans which only the most obtuse would deny occurred. The candidate then simply threw in the towel while bending over, I was in utter disgust

Edited for brain fart

Jonathan Simon of the Alliance for Democracy had taken screen shots of the exit poll data that proved the Kerry victory and alerted the Kerry campaign. An Ohio Democratic operative had informed the General Counsel of the Ohio Democratic Party of the anomalous report of Kerry under performing the rest of the ticket in a dozen SW Ohio counties.

Senator Kerry had taken all of the public interest groups' election protection operations under his wing at the Democratic convention. After the election he informed them there would be no litigation over the 2004 election. His campaign had raised some $7 million for post election litigation. Not a cent of that money was offered to support our citizen challenges in state and federal court, even though Reverend Jesse Jackson asked Senator Kerry for such financial support for our efforts.

Senator Kerry did authorize his Ohio election counsel, Don McTigue, to participate in the recount effort. However, he did not support any of our effort to investigate and litigate against the flagrant fraud in that election.

On the day U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Senator Barbara Boxer filed the challenge to the Ohio 2004 Electoral Vote, Senator Kerry was in Iraq "with the troops," having left instructions with his Senate colleagues not to support the challenge.

Senator Kerry told Dick Russell, coauthor of Jesse Ventura's book "American Conspiracies" that he knew his election was stolen, but by the time his lawyers figured it out, it was too late to do anything about it.

anything about it since he had prematurely conceded the race. 7 million dollars in a post election litigation fund and not one penny offered for your investigation and to see justice meted out, unflippin believable !

in it and said that they would tie up the presidency with allegations that Kerry knew of the affair all along. Blackmail , DC's best friend.

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...and IS fighting. Just not the way some people wanted him to.

Many people don't realize that most concessions...following an election...happen the same night. Gore, in 2000, conceded and then unconceded. That was right to do, but HIGHLY unusual. So was the recount, which IMHO should have been finished. I think the Supreme Court was wrong.

However, one of the strengths of our democracy is the way we transfer power peacefully...and I believe Al Gore considered that when he finally did concede. Elected, but not inaugurated.

As to John Kerry, I believe he is a man of integrity. Only he can say why he conceded the next day. BUT...my guess would be that he ALSO considered whether a fight against GWB would de-stabilize our democracy. I think it could have, even though I would have liked to see one. AND, he may not have had all the information needed to win such a fight. To the best of my memory, evidence was erased from hard drives that could have been critical to winning. And the courts were led by mostly GOP judges.

I was involved with the ePluribus Media folks who helped to uncover the embedded presences of SmarTech and Mike Connell inside of Ken Blackwell's Election Night network.

Some of us felt that an important part of the impetus in Ken Blackwell's contract for 'real-time' reporting of election night results was to ensure that he "owned" election night results.

As Ohio's election night administrator, he came with the vested authority of the State, which ensured that any fight over results began with the GOP holding a couple of built-in advantages.

With Connell's real-time reporting system, by 2 AM SOS Blackwell could assert and begin defending, in Ohio, what was unavailable to SOS Harris the morning after, in Florida: The power of the digital perception that Bush won!

Overnight and immediately, Blackwell put Kerry in the position of overturning the sitting President Bush's 'win'.

It maybe irrelevant to cite it, in this circumstance, but there's lots of reason for the adage, 'ownership is 9/10's of the law'. ePluribus Media collaborators had to bring me around to understanding the advantage that was created by Blackwell's ability to authoritatively claim the Bush win during the wee hours of Nov. 3, 2004.

I think one of the things accomplished by Connell's election night reporting system was to help assure Kerry's quick concession.

to understand how this would warrant a quick concession? Sorry

for sure, but I think one of the powers of instantaneous, digital media is to give consumers what they want, immediate gratification and closure. I think Kerry remembered the rancorous aftertaste left by Florida's fiasco.

Not all of us gave up that night, but it only requires the perception of "most" to win. If a bunch of those who would fight under other circumstances are convinced to give it up before the real fight starts ('Bush won. Another Florida, oh God!?'), half the battle is won.

To be sure, however, Cliff Arnebeck has more direct knowledge of what the campaign's thinking might have been on that cold morning-after, than I did.

have absolutely no concept of the discussions and considerations the Kerry campaign was having the day after. But, igt was very disheartening.

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I think Karl Rove abused his policy position in the White House to prolong the Iraq war. Had we simply toppled Saddam Hussein, a self-admitted Stalinist, and left the Iraqi army and civil service alone, as our military wanted to do, the war would have been over before the 2004 election. I believe it was Rove who was behind the dismissal of the Iraqi army and the debathification of the Iraqi civil service, which created a power vacuum, an insurgency and a long war of occupation. Perhaps Rove's missing Emails would reveal this to be the case.

For Rove it was a way to have G.W. Bush running for reelection as a "war-time President;" and a basis for telling John Kerry, the Democratic Party, the FBI and our nation's investigative press corps that they could not attack the integrity of the President and Commander in Chief at a time of war. Persuading/influencing Kerry not to contest was the key to getting everyone else to fall into line. The evidence that John Kerry felt a duty to support the war, the commander-in-chief and the troops was his presence in Iraq on January 6, 2005, the day the challenge to the Ohio Electoral College vote was raised by U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer.

when he wouldnt fight for it, it really showed that he didnt want it at all.
As soon as I heard his 'concession' I ripped the bumper sticker off my car.
That'll show em, I thought....yeah, right, showed them...

This morning I posted a diary on Daily Kos discussing the absurdity of our letting Karl Rove get away with the treasonous conduct in which he has engaged so successfully for so long. Someone quoted my original post for this thread and on that basis recommended that my diary be excluded as "conspiracy theory."

Here is the link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/28/1205369/-Absurd-control-we-gave-Karl-Rove-over-U-S?showAll=yes

Fear of this label being applied to those willing to stand up against actual political conspiracies may have been a factor weighing against John Kerry contesting the reported 2004 Presidential election result. It certainly worked well against those who pointed to evidence of a conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Go to ElectionProtectionAction.org to make either a tax deductible, or confidential, contribution.

Thank you for your consideration,

Cliff Arnebeck

I believe we have had the support of only one member of the financial elite in this country since 2004. The bulk of our support has come from ordinary citizens--the same base that Howard Dean tapped into during the 2004 Presidential primary. The truth is, we members of the 99% can beat those who are stealing trillions and spending billions to retain their privilege to do so. All each of us needs to do is our part.

Thank you very much, Art, for your leadership.

Cliff

Last edited Tue Apr 2, 2013, 06:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Please see my updated/edited post #166 to your question about why Kerry conceded. And thank you again for your support.

Bernie Sanders seems to be suggesting that would be a good idea. He's calling for a political and moral war against corporate crooks.

I cannot recall an instance where Bernie Sanders was not dead on. He is one of those extremely rare political figures who might qualify for sainthood.

His values and principles are not for sale

It's out now, in ABC-TV's Scandal series, Thursday nights @ 10 pm.

I wrote you a letter or an email in those early days thanking you and you replied which amazed me. Without you and Bob Fitrakis this whole sham would have been swept under the rug.

Thank you for your words of support and encouragement.

Here is the link to our 2008 news conference in Columbus: http://archive.org/details/ElectionFraudInOhioCourtCase

I also raised the matter of Borgia's placement as SAC for Cincinnati in December 2004 at a Restore Justice at Justice news conference at the National Press Club in 2009: http://vimeo.com/album/111956/video/5688799

would help for future use.

Some people either were not around DU then or have short term memories.


Thanks for all you do, Mr. Arnebeck.

elections forum here on DU. This story was a frequent topic on that forum.

... GREAT picture.

Not being fascious, but if you google the OP's name you'll see what I mean. Too bad the media did not cover the work he and others did on those crimes. Not blaming you at all for not being familiar with the OP and his work, just sad that the truth was never covered by our media.

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The election called so early, he must have thought he had his people working for him again. The more I hear about the Bush administration the more dirt I see coming from the scumbags. We will be paying for the sins of those years for a long time.

The reason this gang fears private litigation is that it could be a vehicle for recovering from them some of those damages. I am surprised there have not been any trolls on this site attacking our work so as to discourage funding support from DU for our efforts.

But for the work of CASE-Ohio, led by Susan Truitt, Ohio would not have had as many paper ballots in the 2004 election. CASE-Ohio pushed for legislation that required DRE machines to have a paper trail.

In the 2012 election we believe the credible threat of a manual recount at the expense of ES&S of ballots cast in counties to which ES&S had attached secret software patches just before the election scared ES&S and the Republican Secretary of State into "nixing the fix."

This is written up by Lou Dubose in the January Issue of the Washington Spectator, and republished at ElectionProtectionAction.org.

The threat of a court supervised post election audit--made credible by the testimony/affidavit of NSA expert Mikey Duniho and of which Karl Rove was unaware--explains Karl Rove's election night meltdown over the Ohio call by Fox News.

linked to a 2012 plan which failed?

Remember that Rove and a lot of other Republicans thought that it was going to be a very close election and that Ohio might determine the outcome. When Rove made his outburst, the scope of Obama's electoral margin was not yet clear. Rove clearly thought that Romney could still win Ohio and the election. Why was he so sure in spite of a lot of evidence to the contrary? It was more than just denial, imo. He knew something - or thought he knew something. And go back to 2004. Something clearly seemed to have happened in Ohio and several other states which made the exit polls not line up very well with the actual final outcome.

Yes. Rove had a grand scheme, led by the OpSec (Operations Security) attack, that fizzled before it got very far off the ground. OpSec was to damage Obama in 2012 the same way the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth damaged Kerry in 2004. This time, however, Jill Simpson tracked OpSec's origins to Rove and SmarTech months before its claimed originators said they had created it. Scytl was supposed to play a part in realizing the benefits of the OpSec attack. Simpson exposed Scytl's North American HQ as being a residence in Virginia. Scytl filed a change of address for its HQ to another token address the day after Simpson's picture of the Virginia home appeared in the Free Press.

Rove was still counting on the traditional 5-6 point red shift in the Ohio vote on election night. The leak to the Free Press of the ES&S secret contract the week before the election and our litigation regarding it on election day disrupted this last piece of the grand plan that had been unraveling all along.

and yes we had a hunch that he was shocked it didn't work this time.

Thanks for your active participation in this thread, and your complements.

Cliff

Thanks, again,

Cliff

electoral 'reforms' being promoted by ReTHUG governors and ReTHUG controlled legislatures.
They want to turn back the clock.

I was not familiar with this "English" lesson. Democracy as envisioned in our Declaration of Independence is based upon the Judeo-Christian concept of each of us being created in the image of God. This spark of divinity within each of us as human beings is what entitles us to know what is going on, form and express opinions about it, and vote. Poll taxes and similar Jim Crow tactics originating out of Rove/Koch/Chambers (21st century Republican controlled state legislatures) are based upon material elitism and the pagan worship of golden idols.

Do you think they helped to stop the theft or was that video a sham?

I recall the video appearing before the election, warning Rove not to tamper with it. After the election Brett Kimberlin reported receipt of a letter from "Protectors" claiming to have shut down parts of Romney's computer operations in three states. Thom Hartmann came out with a piece suggesting he thought this activity helped block Rove and may have been the reason for his election night meltdown on Fox.

Because Rove was complaining only about Fox's call of Ohio for Obama, I think it was the Ohio Free Press suit that "nixed Rove's Ohio fix," rather than anything Anonymous or the "Protectors" did. Beyond that, I have no knowledge or opinion about what they did. I do think that the DOJ and FBI presence in the field to watch for both voter suppression and vote rigging activity was a major improvement in our commitment as a nation to honest elections. I also appreciated the President's acknowledgment at his State of the Union address of the black woman who waited in line for many hours to vote. The President has directed his attention to this problem, and he is the best ally we could possibly have.

Keep up the good fight, Mr Arnebeck!!

The 2000 elections were the ones that initially reported a Gore win in Florida, only to be reversed by the Bush cousin on Fox.

The 2004 elections were always hokey in Ohio, but I don't think they ever reported a Kerry win followed by a reversal.

I most certainly confused the two. Duh!

pacalo's link to the full Washington Spectator article no longer works. I have reposted it above as an edit to my original thread.

Also at:

http://washingtonspectator.us/jo15/index.php/Archive/did-an-election-day-lawsuit-stop-karl-roves-vote-rigging-scheme-in-ohio.html#.VdT9orJVikr
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2560634) and
http://electionprotectionaction.org/4/post/2013/01/did-an-election-day-lawsuit-stop-karl-roves-vote-rigging-scheme-in-ohio.html

I was just going to ask if that was another cover-up. I hope it now comes to trial or an investigation, as that has always eaten at me.

Also, the death of the programmer out of Florida that was "suicided" in one of those mysterious locked motel rooms. That was hushed up pretty quickly, as well. No autopsy, as I recall.

Before I leave this earth, I'd sure love to know what happened and see a few frog marches.

Welcome to DU, Mr. Arnebeck!

How these men parade in public shocks me.
I don't plan to forget that 2000 theft of Florida either.

because SCOTUS decided Florida, and Gore would have won 270 without Florida.

And Nader lied, as Gore wouldn't have chosen those judges that the Bush's did.

But you can believe what ever you want.

Rove also orchestrated, out of SmarTech, the theft of the 2000 election.

FSOS Katherine Harris knowingly purged tens of thousands of fully qualified and registered black voters from the rolls. I was told of this tactic by a Republican lawyer in Columbus, Ohio the week before the election, and Greg Palast documented it.

Punch card ballots were deliberately manipulated to create under-votes/over-votes on ballots cast for Gore.

Electronic voting machines were manipulated by malicious software.

Criminal six-point red-shifting prejudices the ability of progressive independent candidates to play their most constructive role in the election process. On election day of the 2012 election, Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein was was not seeking votes. She, with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, were working to block the application of malicious software in 25 Ohio counties administered by ES&S.

In 2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate David Cobb and the Libertarian Party candidate led the Ohio Recount effort.

See: http://ElectionProtectionAction.org for video of the 2012 election day press conference and litigation in that regard.

Last edited Fri Mar 29, 2013, 07:07 PM - Edit history (1)

There's a video out there... That Dan Rather did where they talk about the paper where the punch cards was manufactured. They said the substrate thickness of the paper roll changed making the punch cards more difficult to use contributing to the "hanging chads" and "dimples" and other anomalies with the punch cards in Florida specifically.


Here's part of the transcript below the rest can be found here http://election-reform.org/dan_rather.html#palm_beach


Sequoia: Switched to substandard paper ballots for 2000 Presidential Election

38:35 Dan Rather: The idea that finding the best voting system is an engineering problem is not new. In fact it was some of the best engineering minds in the country, at IBM, who perfected the old Votomatic punch card system decades ago. Those punch cards, when they had been used by IBM for data processing, had been precise enough to help land a man on the moon. That's how reliable they were.

But by 2000, in an avalanche of hanging and falling chads, the punch card voting system was proclaimed to be "unreliable", old hat, out with the old and in with the new. Yet seven years and billions of dollars later, the public, especially in Florida, the public is clamoring for paper ballots again. Only this time, there is no IBM quality control, no quality control standards in the background. And each machine now costs thousands of dollars not a few hundred, as in the punch card era.

How did we get here? It all happened so quickly, in a matter of weeks, maybe months, starting in Florida. Was this rush to convert even necessary? There may be some disturbing answers to that question, in events that unfolded long before Bush vs. Gore.

Tonight we hear from a group of people who think they know what happened in Florida, 2000, and why.

The following is not on the video, but is in the HDnet transcript: It all sounds familiar, too familiar. Taxpayers being asked to throw out millions of dollars worth of voting equipment, start over again, and pick up the tab. With no guarantee the new equipment will provide a solution to the problems. Technology can often offer a solution to a complicated process, in this case, accurately recording votes. But technology poorly conceived, designed, integrated and tested is a recipe for failure. In this instance, subsidizing the same outfits that couldn't get it right the first time, giving them more chances could lead to the further waste of millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars. And just as important, the further loss of confidence in our nation's ability to use technology to provide solutions for mission-critical applications, none more important to our nation than accurately recording each of our votes.

Now, back to a core question: was the rush to these expensive and perhaps ill-conceived new voting systems necessary?
End of section on the transcript, but not on the video

40:00 Dan Rather: Our investigation took us into the heart of California's central valley, to the tiny town of Exeter, where for over thirty years Sequoia voting systems, at this factory, made hundreds of millions of punch card ballots, up until 2003. Punch card ballots dominated the voting landscape in 2000. Among many other places they were the most common voting system in Florida. The system seemed idiot proof. You simply took a stylus and punched out holes, or chads, as they are known, and the cards were then run through a computerized tabulator. Couldn't be simpler, or so it seemed.

What really struck voting experts about the 2000 election in Florida were the many tens of thousands of ballots that had overvotes or undervotes for president. Where voters appeared to have voted for more than one presidential candidate or none at all. Over 50,000 Sequoia punch cards statewide were discarded as invalid because voters appeared to have overvoted. In fact, on fully 17,000 of the Sequoia cards, voters seemed to have voted for three or more presidential candidates! Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County alone over 10,000 voters had not voted for president at all.

Experts scrambled for possible explanations, confused voters, confusing ballot layout, like the infamous butterfly ballot. But no one was looking at the punch cards themselves.

We recently met up with a group of former Sequoia employees who actually made the punch card ballots, who feel they have the real answer as to what happened in Florida 2000, and why.

They have never had a chance to tell their stories. Until now. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate each and every one of you being here. Well first of all, tell me who you are and how many years you had at Sequoia.

Tom Ayers: I'm Tom Ayers and I was at Sequoia for 33 years. I was the shipping and receiving foreman.

Linda Evans: I'm Linda Evans I was at Sequoia Pacific for 7 or 8 years and I did quality control.

Suzy Keller: Suzy Keller. I worked at Sequoia for 25 and a half years and I was the controller.

Giles Jensen: Giles Jensen. I worked for Sequoia Pacific for 25 years and I had several positions in management.

Cy Turner: Cy Turner. I was the pressman at Sequoia for 13 years.

Greg Smith: Greg Smith. I worked for Sequoia Pacific for 32 years and I was a pressman trainer.

E. Washington: E. Washington, I was a pressman at Sequoia pacific. I worked there 26 years.

Dan Rather: Well have you added up how many years experience you have cumulative total between you?

Workers: (laughter) A lot.

Dan Rather: John Ahmann, the biggest punch card expert in the United States says that Sequoia Pacific made the best voting ballots anywhere.

43:25 Cy Turner: We took great pride in the quality of ballots we put out; there was no leeway. It had to be right and it had to be on time. And they took a great pride in doing that from top to bottom.

Dan Rather: Well, the company told customers that Sequoia produced, and I quote, "a no defect product." Now, what did that mean to you?

Suzy Keller: No defects? That means punch cards would punch properly. They would go through the card readers properly. It's a no fault, what they said. And they did it for years.

Dan Rather: They did it, these workers say, until the months leading up to the 2000 presidential election, when they say they saw many things changing, but none more troubling than the paper itself.

Linda Evans: The paper would come through the press looking like it was doing, like jello. It would just kinda, and we'd have to go throw away both ends of the paper, cuz we couldn't run it.

Greg Smith: The paper? The paper is a large factor in the quality of the ballot.

Cy Turner: It's the flour for the bread. I mean you can't make good bread without good flour. If you don't have good paper, you can't make good ballots.

Dan Rather: Did you have input, you know, as rank and file workers in the plant, did you have input on what kind of paper was acceptable and what kind wasn't.

E. Washington: Yes.

Dan Rather: The policy was workers could reject rolls that were imperfect or damaged and they say they often did send rolls out for salvage trying to insure top quality ballots.

Cy Turner: A pressman running a press could reject a roll, kick it back to raw stock, say this roll was no good. We had rolls come off in huge logs and they're marked by position when they slice a, b, c, d, e. Right about early '99, maybe middle of '99 started getting rolls marked x and z. We couldn't figure that out, but man they were terrible.

Greg Smith: We had quite a bit of input, but towards the end, we had no input whatsoever.

Dan Rather: So things changed.

All: Yes they did.

Greg Smith: After 1999, it was all over. It was like we were all put on the shelf.

Dan Rather: And your opinion didn't matter after that.

All: Exactly.

What changed in 1999?

Greg Smith: The paper changed. They decided that they wanted to go with a certain brand. And I think that everybody's opinion was this 2000 election was going to be our demise. Because of the poor quality of what we put out the door.

45:55 Dan Rather: For decades Sequoia had ordered its punch card ballot paper from James River or International Paper; the only mills that had traditionally offered voting punch card stock. In 2000, the company switched to a new mill, Boise Cascade, which had virtually no experience making tab card stock. Workers say they were told to stop testing paper samples. Traditional quality control standards were relaxed.

Linda Evans: There were a lot of things that we were told to let go. And there was card bins I wouldn't sign off. I refused to sign em. They'd sit there overnight and they would say, "you gonna sign em?" and I'd go "no". Come in the following morning, all the bins had been signed off and moved to the front.

Dan Rather: Which means they're being made into ballots.

Linda Evans: Right. Which means someone else signed em off and said let em go.

Dan Rather: But the workers say the problems they were having with the paper went beyond a mere change in suppliers. They say they were suddenly seeing paper rolls that weren't clearly even Boise Cascade paper, because these rolls had Xeroxed Boise shipping labels, rather than genuine ones. Where was all this terrible paper coming from? They say they were baffled that so much paper could be bad, until one day, they got a clue.

E. Washington: One of the pressman is not here. Bob Krause. He had a thing if the paper was real bad, that he would write little nasty letters on the side of the roll. Well, we got one of those rolls back, with the same letter that he had written on it. So, then, that's when it went through our mind that some of that paper was getting rewound and sent back.

47:40 Dan Rather: Not only that. Mr. Washington says this roll, and many of the worst rolls, had a Xeroxed Boise packing label on it. Let me understand this. Your fellow worker, he gets paper he knows is not up to quality?

E. Washington: He's disgusted with. Yes.

Dan Rather: So he marks on it?

E. Washington: Yes.

Dan Rather: This is bad or whatever. That presumably leaves the plant or goes somewhere and then it comes back with one of these Xerox Boise labels on it?

E. Washington: Yeah.

Dan Rather: Did you know about this as well?

Greg Smith: Well, I had the same suspicions as everybody else did as far as the paper. Felt that it, it was rejected and it was taken out of the plant and stored somewhere and then relabeled and brought back.

Dan Rather: Well let's just go down the line is there any doubt in your mind that the company was aware that the ballots for the 2000 general election, including the Presidential vote, were being made with inferior paper? You don't think there's any doubt that they knew that?

Various: No doubt. They were told every day. Yeah. They were told everyday.

Thank you for adding this information. Dan Rather's crew came to Columbus in 2007 and conducted a similar investigation of the 2004 Ohio paper punch card ballots. The most obvious evidence of this form of vote count rigging had been illegally destroyed.

My wife and I encountered Republican political operatives organizing the circulation of petitions to get Ralph Nader on the Ohio 2000 ballot for President. I do not recall hearing Ralph asking Florida voters not to vote for him because of the closeness and apparent cheating going on in that election or criticizing Karl Rove and/or the Republican Party of Florida for stealing the 2000 Presidential election.

and the way the Green Party acted in the elections.

We can thank the Green Party for helping to keep the GOP from stealing elections -- but not Nader.

Ray Lemme, an investigator for the Florida Department of Transportation, was assassinated according to evidence gathered by investigative journalist John Caylor. Lemme told Clint Curtis that he was on the verge of issuing a report with which Curtis would be pleased.

Mike Connell's death has not yet been properly investigated as the result of the crime that it was.

An anonymous source from within the McCain campaign informed us: first, that Rove had issued a threat, through Jeff Averbeck, of adverse consequences if Connell did not take the fall for the theft of the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio, and then later, that Connell was willing to talk and that he was in danger from Rove. The second report prompted us to press for Connell's deposition before the 2008 election and for his personal attendance at the Cleveland federal court hearing on whether the deposition would proceed.

Connell did not "take the fall." Indeed, he pointed the finger at others for the obvious security issues raised by having SmarTech servers mirroring the Ohio Secretary of State's entire election operation.

Attorney General Mukasey did not designate the December 19, 2008 crash as a crime scene, so it was investigated by the NTSB to determine other possible causes. Later, when another informant using the pseudonym of Mark Felt (Deep Throat of Watergate), transmitted a post operation report on the termination of Mike Connell as a national security threat, the Cleveland FBI decided there was nothing to it. When I asked the Columbus FBI to meet with me, Bob Fitrakis and Henry Eckhart to discuss all the evidence we had of an ongoing racketeering conspiracy, I was advised that because the Cleveland FBI decided there was nothing to it, they were not going to look at it any further. Stanley Borgia at this point was serving on the President's Intelligence Advisory Panel.

The federal court in Columbus declined to permit us to take the deposition of Karl Rove, whom we had successfully subpoenaed with the cooperation of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

We are hoping to soon have both the judicial forum and the necessary resources to proceed with a proper investigation of Karl Rove's role as the principal perpetrator in an ongoing pattern of corrupt activity, including, but not limited to, strategic assassinations.