As the last ballots are cast tonight, Ohioans will confidently track realtime results using voting equipment and Internet reporting systems that Ken Blackwell built to replace the horrors of hanging chads. Will the electorate choke to find that the architect of Ohio's Election Night Results Dashboard is an RNC technology strategist and the political intimate of the Bush Dynasty since the 80s? Will a Strickland voter simply resolve to swallow harder on discovering that his realtime election returns may be shipped to his desktop from the GOP Internet operations center in Chattanooga rather than the Ohio OARnet IT servers in Columbus?
When Brutus Buckeye clicks on Blackwell's Election Night results link, will he recall that his tax dollars were among hundreds of thousands spent by Blackwell on the consulting firm that created the live election returns system was the very same consulting firm behind Bush-Cheney 2004?! Will anyone recognize that Dashboard clicks will be making a roundtrip through Tennessee when SOS J. Kenneth Blackwell throws the right switch on the Internets?
Ohio website for live Election Night Dashboard moves from State of Ohio to
SMARTechcorp.net IP address managed by the Republican National Committee
COMING SOON: Netcraft Site report for election.sos.state.oh.us
In the meantime, please refer to Server History for election.sos.state.oh.us
You won't be able to find the realtime election results on the Ohio SOS website (www.sos.state.oh.us) until the switch is throw, but you can get a quick preview by clicking
http://64.203.98.137//Results/Dashboard.aspx
Ohio's election results were delivered to Americans at Internet speed in 2004, reflecting Ken Blackwell's deliberate contrast to Florida's chaos of four years earlier. The Secretary of State had met the enemy of timely results when in Florida where he was sent to join Ohio's special team helping the Bush effort. A variety of chad deformations left voters' intent uncertain and started the weeks-long debacle that deepened with partisan challenges in often unprecedented legal terrain.
Blackwell decided that Ohio would have none of this if he could help it. Two weeks before Florida's election decision was made final, on December 1, 2000, the first step of his plan to reduce or eliminate uncertainty of Ohio's election process was announced: Ohio would explore replacing punchcards with electronic balloting. Following his return home, SOS Blackwell put into motion other measures that ranged from legislation of legal procedure to creating technology that would deliver Ohio's voting returns in realtime to the voter's desktop.
Ken Blackwell's successful effort proved itself in the wee hours of November 3, 2004, when John Kerry felt no recourse but to concede defeat.
The Winter 2005 issue of Blackwell's internal publication, The Spirit of Citizenship and Democracy, recapped Ohio's successful election. Self-congratulations were in order for the man who bore the double burden of Secretary of State and Bush-Cheney committee co-chair through that long year:
The electoral system in Ohio worked well on November 2. Every eligible voter who wanted to vote had the opportunity to vote. There was no widespread fraud, and there was no disenfranchisement. A half million more Ohioans voted than ever before with fewer errors than four years ago, a sure sign of success by any measure.
Despite the more than 30 separate lawsuits, hordes of special-interest group "swat teams" descending on polling places, and a circus of Michael Moore-inspired camera crews, our bipartisan election system — and the order, integrity and transparency integral to it — prevailed...
....
As predicted, all eyes were on Ohio by late evening and into the early morning hours of November 3rd as our state played the determining role in the presidential race labeled "too-close-to-call" before Election Day by statisticians and pundits alike...
We took out the guesswork that plagued Florida's administration of the 2000 election by implementing clear standards, policies and procedures.
According to Blackwell, the Election Night website first rolled out in 2003 (eg., archive.org cache). But it was the 2004 Presidential election that put Ohio in the postion of swinging 20 electoral votes during a tight race so that everyone knew Ohio would be examined through a microscope using Florida.2000 as a lens. The SOS retained service providers who could develop, host, test, and manage the systems able to handle at least 29 million visitors to election.sos.state.oh.us on Election Night 2004.
The content of the site was just as important as traffic capacity.
The main drawing card — live returns — were pulled straight from the Secretary of State’s election-returns database.
Remarkably, The Spirit only seems to have referred generically and once to involvement of outside firmsin the 12 page review of Ohio's Election. There was no mention of Diebold
in context of the Election Night Project. On the other hand, Alan Dillman (of Government Consulting Resources, Ltd. and evangelist Cedarville University) spoke at length as a consultant of the project mentioning Blackwell's frequent, prominent use of its realtime data to establish authoritative results for television audiences. Interestingly, Dillman
conflated timeliness with the accuracy of Ohio's returns.
Mr. Blackwell took center stage many times that evening on major
news networks, and each time he was able to report the most current and accurate
results of the Ohio election," explained Dillman. "Mr. Blackwell`s goal
of a fair, honest, and accurate vote in Ohio was achieved through, arguably, his
management of the best-run election in U.S. history, and thanks, in part, to the
efforts of the faculty, staff, and students of Cedarville University.
SOS Blackwell also neglected to inform that he outsourced Election Night hosting
services to the provider of Internet operations for the Republican National Committee,
SMARTech Corp. It's clear that most
of the IP address space allocated to Smartechcorp, if it has a domain name, is
operated by the RNC or its functionaries and allies.
Is there significance to the fact that election.sos.state.oh.us, on Tuesday
night, will correspond to the IP address that lies between Karl Rove's
Votervault.com and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC)? Just
one arrangment of odd bedfellows in that example click the link
to IP Block 64.203.98.xxx for other familiar examples such as Becki Donatelli-client,
VetsForFreedom.com, or Ken Mehlman's 72hour.org.. They're all hot items right
now with each aimed capture the reader's vote.
Attempting to surf to http://election.sos.state.oh.us
will redirect the visitor to http://www.sos.state.oh.us.
Following Election Results links leads to http://www.sos.state.oh.us/...
(not the Election Night Dashboard at time of writing). On Tuesday, Nov. 7, databases
of name servers should be refreshed to enable websurfers to clicking 'election.sos.state.oh.us'
to arrive at http://64.203.98.137//Results/Dashboard.aspx.
Ken Blackwell outsourced the design of the Election Night Project to Mike Connell
who is a GOP operative and the principal of New
Media Communications and GovTech Solutions. Their association may go back
as far as the George H. W. Bush era. Connell's long-established association in
the online political, campaign and fundraising arenas, in addition to his technological
expertise, made him a shoe-in for government and non-government services where
pay-to-play is the standard..
On April 7, 2000, Blackwell certified the woman-owned (Connelle's wife, Heather),
small business that Mike Connell spunoff of New Media Communication in order to
provide government contracting service.having a 'non-partisan' face. When Blackwell
stamped 'approval' on that incorporation, he'd previously approved the mergner
of DCI Group
and NewMedia Communications.
Yes, that is the same DCI Group that later employed New Hampshire phone-jammer,
James Tobin. So, including silent GovTech Solutions partner, Tom Synhorst,
was as partisan a ploy as had Mike been partner rather than registered agent..
Why does all of this matter?
Consider Ken Blackwell as Governor, and choosing consultants for Ohio's elections:
Ohio's man at the center of the national election storm
Plain Dealer, October 24, 2004 Sunday
Blackwell blames the sharp distinction made in America between church and
state on a false interpretation of the Constitution, and pushes God-centered government
regularly in his public speeches. He opposes abortion and gay marriage and sides
with those who believe taxes are too high and government too big.
On Blackwell’s watch, the secretary of state’s office opened the
Ohio Center for Civic Character, which elicits pledges of moral character from
candidates for public office.
“He’s adored by the strong conservative, the right-wing faction of
the party,” Bennett said. “There is no question that he is.”
Bob Rohm, vice president of Christian Ministries at Cedarville University,
asked students to pray for Blackwell in the face of the personal attacks he faces
this election season. He said he believes Blackwell “doesn’t plug his
faith in, then unplug it, like some politicians.”
“I have reason to believe Ken is going to do everything right, period,”
he said. “He’s a man of strong faith and personal conviction.
Will pay-to-play cronyism enter the Governor's mansion?
Blackwell
defends campaign donations
Sunday, April 16, 2006
"That's the way business is done in Columbus. Want a contract? Write
a check," Redfern said.
Blackwell's opponent in the May 2 primary, Attorney General Jim Petro, has
pledged that if elected, his first initiative would be to "end political
favoritism" by calling for a ban on awarding state contracts to political
contributors.
Blackwell doesn't support Petro's proposal. Blackwell said he wants to make
campaign contributions and government contracts more transparent through online
databases. He said that would let the public "follow the dollars and make
determinations about whether or not there are misdoings."
New Media Communications and its spin-off, Govtech Solutions, have received
about $465,000 from the secretary of state's office, and New Media received $30,335
for its work on the Blackwell campaign.
It seems that Ken Blackwell would make his campaign contributions information
as transparent as the relationships he has with the people who'd be putting those
transaction databases online.
Who might that be? Mike Connell, of NewMedia Communications, is one good bet.
Of recognition for his company's Innovation Mike Connell writes,
Every candidate/client New Media served emerged from the 2004 election victorious.
Among them were Bush-Cheney '04, Senators John Thune, David Vitter and George
Voinovich, seven congressional candidates and a number of state ballot initiatives.
Innovative campaign strategies and solid program execution clearly impacted these
outcomes.
New Media created the first interactive political ad for the Bush 2000 campaign.
The ad was unveiled on the candidate’s website – a technique that was
quickly copied by other candidates. By 2004, interactive web videos became a common
component in all presidential campaigns.
Connell's executive summary of Who We Are defines NewMedia's Our
People in crystal-clear political terms:
He continues to be a driving force for his clients and for the industry
-- bringing emerging technologies and fresh ideas into the political arena, through
every campaign cycle.
In the realm of campaign politics, Connell has provided Internet strategy
to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns of 2000 and 2004. He has served as Internet
consultant to scores of prominent senators, governors and Members of Congress,
as well as the Republican National Committee and four Republican National Conventions.
COMING SOON! : New Media's client list reads like a "Who's Who" of Republican politics
Until then please see Complete NewMedia-selected client
hall of fame
So the Internet strategist for Bush-Cheney 2004 was also paid by the Bush-Cheney
2004 campaign co-chair and Secretary of State of Ohio to ensure that the Election
Night Dashboard running from IP space controlled by Bush-Cheney 200 in time enough
to assure the opposing candidate had ideas other than to concede? And this machinery
had been geared up for this year's primary?!
It's been live this week, are Ohio voters ready?
If it was not a careful consideration he made, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell
certainly should have thought again before plugging the Bush-Cheney Internet strategist
into Ohio's election-results database to code and program the realtime reporting
system used to establish John Kerry's loss in 2004.
If it had been carefully considered, perhaps the voters of Ohio should question
J. Kenneth Blacwell's potential judgement as Governor. After all, it's not even
by Nov. 7, 2006, that Ken Blackwell cared to inform the electorate that he's running
their electrons around the Internet before delivering the Results to their home.
Chattanooga anyone?
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