It seems you have your facts confused. The results you posted are not the recount results, but are the final official results, certified on Dec. 1st. The Recount has not even started.

The final results differ from the election night results because they include the absentee and provisional ballots.

Now that the election results have been certified, the recount can begin. Ohio law states that no recount can begin until the vote has been certified by the Secretary of State. The deadline for certification was Dec. 1st.

I’m sorry to inform you that the fight in Ohio is far from over, despite attempts to run out the clock by Mr. Blackwell.

Stop requesting recounts? As you may or may not know, the Ohio recounts were requested not by the Democrats, but by the Green and Libertarian Candidates in a joint effort.

Only now, late in the game, are the Democrats joining the process.

The stated goal of the recount is not to overturn the election. Rather, it is to ensure an open and transparent election process.

We all want that, don’t we?

Voter intimidation and suppression in Ohio and across the country is now documented fact, with over 30,000 complaints to date. And the emerging pattern is quite disturbing, with most of the reports coming from minority and young voters, mostly in Democratic areas.

These issues must be addressed if we are to remain the worlds most enduring democracy!

This is not a partisan issue my friend, it’s an American issue, and one we should all embrace, regaurdless of who takes the White House.

Posted by: Ansik at December 3, 2004 03:57 AM

Ansik I respectfully ask that you take off the chad hat and get a grip. We just went through a recount in this state for one little precinct that makes a huge difference in the legislative body.

Voter intimidation, despite all the liberal wailing is for all practical purposes, a dead issue - everywhere. It was a nice piece of work that liberals cooked up to keep their attorney friends busy for a few weeks.

The voting process has never NOT been fair and open in this country.

Posted by: Cap'n DOC at December 3, 2004 08:17 AM

Ansik- So why just recount Ohio if you are interested in a fair and accurate count. Why not every state? Or is this just hoping beyond hope that Democrats can pull off a fast one here? Why not just recount the counties around Cleveland?

Posted by: Glenzo at December 3, 2004 12:59 PM

Ansik,

“Voter intimidation and suppression in Ohio and across the country is now documented fact, with over 30,000 complaints to date. And the emerging pattern is quite disturbing, with most of the reports coming from minority and young voters, mostly in Democratic areas.”

Complaints are not facts. The complaints come from “minority and young voters, mostly in Democratic areas” because these areas are the domain of the losing parties. Duh.

“Intimidation and suppression” are the whining words of losers. They wore out “disenfranchisement” the last time around. You are not suppressed if you try to vote in the wrong precinct, you are either ignorant or stupid. Maybe people with ® after their name are smart enough to know where they are supposed to vote, while the ones with (D) wander around aimlessly in a fog, confused and ignorant and see a polling place and try to vote. (D)’s not so dumb? Then maybe they were trying to vote more than once, making them criminals instead. Take your pick.

Posted by: Max Darkside at December 3, 2004 02:42 PM

Also: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Posted by: Tomorrowist at December 3, 2004 05:36 PM

Cap’n Doc,

“The voting process has never NOT been fair and open in this country.”

I respectfully ask that you open a history book, or even a newspaper.

In 1870 the 15th Amendment was ratified, which provided specifically that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude. This superseded state laws that had directly prohibited black voting.

Congress then enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870, which contained criminal penalties for interference with the right to vote, and the Force Act of 1871, which provided for federal election oversight. http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/intro/intro_a.htm

These laws led to poll taxes and literacy tests at the polls. Who do you think were effected by these actions? Wealthy white voters?

By 1965 concerted efforts to break the grip of state disfranchisement had been under way for some time, but had achieved only modest success overall and in some areas had proved almost entirely ineffectual. The murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, gained national attention, along with numerous other acts of violence and terrorism. Finally, the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, en route to the state capitol in Montgomery, persuaded the President and Congress to overcome Southern legislators’ resistance to effective voting rights legislation. President Johnson issued a call for a strong voting rights law and hearings began soon thereafter on the bill that would become the Voting Rights Act.
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/intro/intro_b.htm

American democracy did not form in a vacume, and will not remain in a vacume. These laws were hard fought, and continue to be hard fought to this day.

Cap’n Doc says “Voter intimidation, despite all the liberal wailing is for all practical purposes, a dead issue - everywhere. It was a nice piece of work that liberals cooked up to keep their attorney friends busy for a few weeks.”

Tell that to the legislators throughout American history who fought to pass these progressive protections.

Tell that to those who died in the fight to enforce and uphold these laws.

Tell that to those who were wrongfully purged from voter rolls in Florida prior to the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Tell that to those who stood in lines for up to 10 hours on Nov. 2nd, due to inadiquate voting machines, only to leave before voting because they don’t have time to stand in line ALL DAY.

Tell that to those who recieved fliers urging them to vote on Nov. 3rd or giving directions to non-existing precincts.

Tell that to Bush’s former New England Campaign Chairman who has just been indicted by the DoJ for jamming Democratc get-out-the-vote phone lines on election day 2002
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GOP_PHONE_JAMMING?SITE=NYSTA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

A dead issue? Don’t count on it.

Posted by: Ansik at December 3, 2004 07:06 PM

Glenzo,

It is not just about a fair and accurate count. It is also about a transparent process. Ohio is not the only state undergoing a statewide recount…or the first.

The first recount started in New Hampshire, a state won by Kerry. Again, it is not about overturning elections, but to audit the process.

There may also be recounts in Nevada and New Mexico. All Presidential recounts are being requested not by the Democratic Party, but by outside orgainizations interested in the integrity of our democratic processes and institutions.

As for recount strategy, I am not the one to answer those questions, for I am only an observer.

Posted by: Ansik at December 3, 2004 07:13 PM

Max,

Intimidation and supression efforts have, in fact, been documented. The charges are serious enough that the GAO has begun an investigation.

There are investigations or inquries of voter fraud and supression ongoing in,
Nevada http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe,
Oregon(Criminal)http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-sproul14oct14,1,3532412.story?coll=la-news-a_section,
Florida(Criminal),
and Pennsylvanyia. http://www.pittsburghpostgazette.com/pg/04294/398767.stm.

It seems that a Republican funded “registration drive” destroyed or outright denied registration to voters who intended to register as Democrats. That is called suppression, and is also illegal.

The organization, Sproul and Associates, was hired by the RNC and is headed by former executive director od the Arizona Republican Commitee, and was named Voter Outreach of America AKA “America Votes!” which is conspicuously similar to the Democratic orgainization, also named America Votes.
http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe

All of these cases are connected to Mr. Sproul, and these activities have also been discovered in Ohio. Coincidence? I’m sure.

And note my comment above concerning the indictment of James Tobin, Bush’s former New England Campain Chair for phone jamming in 2002. “Whining Liberals” at the DoJ? That is called voter supression, and it is also illegal.

And let us not forget Republican state legislator John Pappageorge, who this summer said, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re going to have a tough time in this election.” OOPPSSIE!!!
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6242175/

These are, of course, just a few examples of a far wider pattern.

But I realize that no amount of evidence will ever make you see that things are not quite right.

Again Max, this is not about Republicans or Democrats, Greens or Libertarians, Conservatives or Progressives. It is about America, Americans, and democracy. NO ONE should allow these charges and accusations to go unchecked, ignored, or uninvestigated.

If they are untrue, then there is nothing to fear, for any of us. The attempts to explain them away serve noone but those who have something to hide.

It seems you are more concerned about partisan perceptions than the future of our democracy.

Posted by: Ansik at December 3, 2004 08:03 PM

Okay Ansik,

I followed all of your links except the one for the LA Times which required registration. None of them contain any evidence of any voter suppression, just allegations, and all about the same company. There was only one allegation of registration forms actually being taken and then destroyed, made by a disgruntled employee. The rest accuse the firm of not offering to register democrats, which isn’t suppression” by any stretch of the law or of the imagination. NONE of these articles even allege that a single actual VOTE was suppressed.

As far as your quote of some Michigan state legislator: who cares? Has anyone actually linked it to anything, even an allegation? People shoot their mouths off all the time, even state legislators.

And none of these are about Ohio. What I want to see is the “documented fact” about 30,000 Ohio votes. Oh, I mean “complaints.” What was the nature of these complaints? Does it include complaints about parking, or maybe the restrooms in polling places? Is there any evidence indicating that any actual vote was actually supressed?

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at December 3, 2004 08:58 PM

..what a waste..time and money..

Posted by: Rob_NC at December 4, 2004 11:06 PM

Voter Disenfranchisement-n. defined as term describing a situation in which Democrats are forced by Republicans to follow election law.

I notice only Republican examples of “disenfranchisement” were used, but, oh no, its not a partisan issue. (rolls eyes)

This ship has sailed, guys. You only succeed in making yourselves “progressive”ly more ridiculous and less appealing to the average voter by pursuing this farce….oh…….”but I realize that no amount of evidence will ever make you see that things are not quite right.”

Your arrogance is exceeded only by your repetition.

Posted by: johnnymozart at December 5, 2004 02:38 AM

Ansik,

A lot of ALLEGATIONS, not much evidence. For example, some of these allegations in Ohio are being investigated by the press. In one article, Ohio Papers Getting Nowhere on Vote Fraud Allegations it says:

At The Cincinnati Post, Editor Mike Philips is still keeping an eye on the allegations, but admits nothing has prompted him to run any alarming stories. “It looks like there is an awful lot of smoke, but not much fire,” he told E&P, adding that he has no staffers assigned fulltime to such stories. “What you see on the Internet gets the true believers all stirred up, but when you actually start looking at it, there seems to be less than meets the eye.”

“If they are untrue, then there is nothing to fear, for any of us.”
The only fear I see is from some that cannot accept that their candidate lost and see their grip within our Republic slipping away and create wild conspiracies to explain why, rather than face the facts. Such screaming only reduces the credibility of your party and worsens your situation.

Posted by: Max Darkside at December 5, 2004 03:19 AM

Jackson,

Had you read through the articles, you would have seen that in fact these allegations are not made from one “disgruntled” former employee, but from dozens of employees from across the nation, from Oregon, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and West Virgina.

This is what is called a pattern. Vote registration employees posing as pollsters and only registering people who’s answers are satisfactory is, in fact, illegal. Voter registration drives, by law, must be non partisan.

Do you think that officials in Oregon, Nevada, and Pennsylvania would all open investigations based on one “disgruntled” employee? Not likely.

A Republican firm hired by the RNC has been accused in several states of destroying registration cards and refusing to register Democratic voters constitutes a pattern.

You misread my statement on “documented fact” of voter suppression and intimidation. These 30,000 complaints have not come from Ohio, but from across the country. What I said was that voter intimidation and suppression tactics have been confirmed, and added that there are ovr 30,000 complaints.

Documented Facts:

-Democratic get-out-the-vote orginazation has phones jammed in 2002 on election day. Former Bush New England campaign chair, James Tobin, has officialy been indicted for this crime.

-Flyers and mailings giving directions to non existant pricincts.

-People posing as BOE officials giving directions to non existing polling places to people standing in line on election day.

-Flyers and mailings claiming that you can not vote if you have unpaid parking tickets, unpaid rent, or unpaid bills.

-FDLA “investigation” into elderly black get-out-the-vote volunteers who were instrumental in defeating Jeb Bush’s bid for governer in 1994. These officials entered the homes of the volunteers ith guns visible. The FDLA itself said of the investigation that there was nothing to investigate.

-Long lines of up to 10 hours due to too few or malfunctioning voting machines.

Consider these long lines in Ohio alone. Has anyone heard of 10 hour lines in Republican areas?
I have not. Was it that voters in heavily Democratic areas simply came out in much larger numbers than those in Repupublican areas?

If that were the case, George Bush should have never won Ohio.

Or was it that in the areas of 10 hour lines there were too few and malfunctioning machines, causing long delays in voting.

This went on all across the country, and as far as I can tell, it only seemed to be a problem in heavliy minority populatated areas. Coincidence? Must be.

Here is a map of repoterd incidents across the state of Ohio. http://www.votersunite.org/info/mapflyerohio2004.pdf

Jackson, what do you think happens when thousands of people are forced to stand in line for up to 10 hours to vote? I think it would be logical to conclude that many of them simply don’t have the time, and must simply leave before voting.

Or, what about when a get-out-the-vote organization’s phone lines are jammed for hours on any givin election day? Naturally, they are unable to make calls to get voters to the polls.

So yes, there is evidence that votes were actually suppressed.

30,000 complaints of intimidation and suppression, coupled with confirmed acts, and the words of a Republican legislator (just shooting his mouth off), all forms a disturbing pattern, and do constitute evidence of intent and willingness to use these tactics. Nuff said!

Posted by: Ansik at December 5, 2004 09:13 PM

Max,

Thank you for your article.

I take issue with some of the statements made in both your post and the article.

I have not used the word “fraud” in any of my posts.

The article reads that “We have written a lot about it, but we have found very little evidence that anything has happened in the election that didn’t happen in every other [Ohio] election,” said Ben Marrison, editor of The Columbus Dispatch. “Every rock we have turned over, we’ve found nothing.”

Really? So it is common in past Ohio election that over 3000 phantom votes were recorded for a candidate? http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/evoting/2004-11-06-ohio-evote-trouble_x.htm

“Ron Royhab, editor of The Blade in Toledo, said his two-person statehouse staff is keeping an eye on accusations, but not taking time to investigate them. “The election is over and we cover the news that is happening,” he told E&P. “We have not found any irregularities.”

Again I point to the 3,893 votes recorded for Bush in a county with only 638 ballots cast. Thats not an irregularity?

10 hour lines in heavily Dem precincts isn’t irregular? Well then i don’t know what is.

Look at the map. I know these are only reports and accusations, but they have been made statewide and nation wide. http://www.votersunite.org/info/mapflyerohio2004.pdf

30,000 allegations from across the country must be some example of a vast left wing conspiracy. After all, its not hard for 30,000 voters, poll watchers, and pricinct judges to collaborate this elaborate plan.

Oh, and Max, get it straight. I am NO Democrat. I have NO party. The national Democratic party has abandoned its principles, and with it, its base.

I for one am GLAD John Kerry will not be President.
We followed him not because we agreed with him or even liked him, but because he was the nominee. If his ineffective campaing was any indication of his leadership style, he would have been an ineffective President as well.

Nope. When it all comes crashing down, (Iraq, the economy, and “the war on terror”) there will be no Democrats or John Kerry to take the fall. This whole thing is the Republican Party’s baby.

Posted by: Ansik at December 5, 2004 09:29 PM

johnnymozzart,

I for one have not seen any reports of Republican voter disenfranchisement. If you have, please feel free to e-mail me with them.

Oh, I like your “definition” of voter disenfrachisement. Not really a definition at all though, huh?

The “average voter” really has no idea at all about whats going on because the “liberal” media isn’t paying much attention. I wish that they were.

I’m done with this thread.

I have been checking up on this page for some form of mea culpa from Viriik, who posted that the Ohio recount was over. It’s been 3 days.

I guess that won’t be happening.

I don’t know whats worse, the fact that I debunked him on his own blog, or the fact that he has not posted one word in response.

If any onf you would like to continue this conversation, please feel free to email me.

I thank you all for the civil discourse.

Posted by: Ansik at December 5, 2004 09:41 PM

Ansik-

You are a Democrat, right? Well, then if the Republicans have this well orchestrated campaign to disenfranchise voters you should go out to do something about it!

It seems to me, though, that both parties do some bad things. I seem to recall alot of talk about fraud by the democrats, particulary associated with their machines. Maybe that is over now, but i doubt it.

Posted by: Glenzo at December 5, 2004 11:08 PM

Yeah, where’s the outrage over Michigan? There were reports of the massive fraud in Detroit, where republicans were kicked out of the ballot counting while the democrats forged votes, but I never hear about recounts in Michigan. Nor do we have any democrats asking for a recount here, because they won. If they had lost, you bet Michigan would also be in recount limbo just like ohio.

Posted by: Brian at December 6, 2004 11:52 AM

Special Report

Texas to Florida: White House-linked clandestine operation paid for “vote switching” software

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Download a .pdf file for printing.
Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Click here to download a free copy.

December 6, 2004—The manipulation of computer voting machines in the recent presidential election and the funding of programmers who were involved in the operation are tied to an intricate web of shady off-shore financial trusts and companies, shady espionage operatives, Republican Party politicians close to the Bush family, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract vehicles.

An exhaustive investigation has turned up a link between current Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney, a customized Windows-based program to suppress Democratic votes on touch screen voting machines, a Florida computer services company with whom Feeney worked as a general counsel and registered lobbyist while he was Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and top level officials of the Bush administration.

According to a notarized affidavit signed by Clint Curtis, while he was employed by the NASA Kennedy Space Center contractor, Yang Enterprises, Inc., during 2000, Feeney solicited him to write a program to “control the vote.” At the time, Curtis was of the opinion that the program was to be used for preventing fraud in the in the 2002 election in Palm Beach County, Florida. His mind was changed, however, when the true intentions of Feeney became clear: the computer program was going to be used to suppress the Democratic vote in counties with large Democratic registrations.

According to Curtis, Feeney and other top brass at Yang Enterprises, a company located in a three-story building in Oviedo, Florida, wanted the prototype written in Visual Basic 5 (VB.5) in Microsoft Windows and the end-product designed to be portable across different Unix-based vote tabulation systems and to be “undetectable” to voters and election supervisors.

Yang, an engineering and computer services company subcontracted to NASA prime contractors like Lockheed Martin, was founded in 1986 by Dr. Tyng-Lin (Tim) Yang. Granted minority-owned “Section 8A” and woman-owned preferential status by the U.S. government, Yang’s clients also include the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT). Yang’s President, Li-Woan (Lee) Yang, is Tim Yang’s wife. Feeney was the registered agent for another Yang company, Y & H Greens, Inc., a company that was dissolved in 1988 and operated from the Yangs’ residence on Merritt Island. The Yangs also serve as co-trustees for an entity called Yang of Merritt Island, Ltd., founded on January 31, 2000, and also run from their residence.

In the autumn of 1999, Curtis, who served as a sort of technology adviser for Yang, first became aware of Feeney’s interest in election rigging. Curtis said at one meeting, Feeney “bragged that he could reduce the minority vote and deliver the election to ‘George.’” At the same meeting, according to Curtis, Feeney said he had “implemented a list that would eliminate thousands of voters that would vote for Democratic candidates” and that “a proper placement of police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25 percent.”

Feeney’s desire to manipulate the vote would be manifested in his home base of Volusia County in the 2000 presidential election. According to The Washington Post, at 10 p.m. on election night, Al Gore was leading Bush in Volusia County by 83,000 to 62,000 votes. One-half hour later, Gore’s vote total had been reduced by 16,000 to 67,000 and an obscure Socialist candidate saw a sudden surge to 10,000 votes in a precinct with only 600 voters. The information on the Volusia optical scanner voting anomalies came from a leaked internal Diebold memorandum. In the end, Bush won Florida and the White House by a mere 537 votes in the most controversial U.S. presidential election in history.

Feeney had long been a voice in Florida GOP politics. He was gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush’s running mate in 1994, a race in which Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles defeated Bush. Chiles once referred to Feeney as “the David Duke of Florida politics.”

In 2002, Feeney asked Curtis if he could develop a touch screen voting machine “flip flop” program. According to Curtis, Feeney asked him, “Can you write a program to flip votes around on touch screen machines?” Curtis said Feeney wanted the program to merely reduce votes in heavily Democratic areas and flip Republican votes to 51 percent and keep Democrat votes to 49 percent. Curtis added that Feeney “did not want to win by a lot.” In return, Curtis said Feeney offered him “big jobs.” Curtis’s main tasks at Yang were to develop the Florida DOT’s Electronic Document Management System. He also worked on the Project Pipeline Information System at another one of Yang’s major clients, Exxon Mobil’s Coral Gables facility.

Curtis said he developed the voting program and eventually handed off his prototype to Feeney. The program was also reviewed by Curtis’s senior coder, Hai Lin (Henry) Nee, who according to Florida Department of Transportation sources, was an illegal alien working in the United States. According Curtis, not only did Nee review the vote switching program code but he constantly downloaded sensitive data to his computer from NASA’s computers. Nee, according to Curtis, moonlighted at an Orlando company called Azure Systems, described by The Orlando Sentinel as a “three person engineering firm” and one of a number of companies linked to Ting Ih-Hsu, a former Lockheed Martin employee. At the same time Nee was reviewing Yang’s vote switching program, he was also being investigated by U.S. federal investigators for illegally shipping Hellfire missile parts to China. Oddly, although U.S. law enforcement agents had put Nee and his associates under surveillance for illegal exports of technology to China in 1999, he and his colleagues were not arrested until March of this year.

Curtis claimed that Yang’s corporate bosses stressed that the company had “unlimited” sources of money that came “mostly” from China. According to Florida DOT employees, House Speaker Feeney pressured their agency to give money to Yang for nonexistent software. The sources also revealed that Feeney was aware that Yang was employing a number of illegal aliens on State of Florida and federal contracts.

Feeney’s ties to Yang paralleled similar close ties to NASA. Feeney’s wife Ellen has worked as an engineer for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center since 1985. Jeb Bush ensured that Florida’s 24th Congressional District was redrawn so that Feeney would have an easy time in his 2002 race against Democratic opponent Harry Jacobs. According to Florida state officials, who spoke on the condition anonymity, 500 Yang employees at the Kennedy Space Center were paid for their time when they agreed to picket against Jacobs. In addition, NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe, according to the same sources, lobbied extensively for Feeney within NASA. In addition, O’Keefe and his close friend and former Pentagon boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, made campaign appearances for Feeney at the Kennedy Space Center.

Feeney’s close ties to Jeb Bush and Cheney paid off. In 2002, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a race that also saw the re-election of Jeb Bush. Early in “vote switch’s” development stages, Feeney had told Curtis that he wanted the program “made to control Palm Beach” in 2002. Palm Beach County’s Election Supervisor was still the controversial Theresa LePore, nicknamed “Madam Butterfly,” who designed the infamous “butterfly ballots” in the 2000 election. LePore had once been an employee of Saudi multi-billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi link that is tied to a huge multi-billion tranche of money distributed throughout off-shore trusts, accounts, and corporations with interlocking directorships that are controlled by Bush interests in Houston. It was this Bush-controlled money cache, originating in the East, and known in Houston by the name “Five Star” and other cryptonyms that was, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, used to fund the rigging of the 2004 election.

When he arrived in Congress, Feeney was given a seat on the House Science and Technology Committee, which oversees NASA’s operations. Feeney was also appointed to the important House Finance and Judiciary Committees. He was also given a clean bill of ethical health by Florida’s Ethics Commission, a panel that has a Republican majority.

After Feeney’s ascension to Congress, Yang’s questionable billing activities with its Florida DOT contract came to the attention of Ray C. Lemme, a seasoned senior investigator with the Florida DOT Inspector General’s Office and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Lemme had a lot of evidence to suspect that Yang was overbilling the DOT for “millions.” After discovering Yang’s dirty laundry, Curtis went to work for the DOT. Mavis Georgalis, the DOT’s contracting officer for the Yang contract, was also aware of improprieties with the contract. As a result of pressure from the Florida State House, both Curtis and Georgalis were eventually fired by the DOT because of their complaints about the Yang contract. Someone was obviously trying to send Curtis a message when, on August 14, 2002, he discovered that someone poisoned his pet Pomeranian dog, Emily. Lemme was forced to stop his official investigation of Yang for similar reasons. However, he decided to continue an “unofficial” investigation of Yang and its practices on the side. It was a fateful decision.

According to DOT employees familiar with the Yang case, Lemme was aware that it was Jeb Bush who personally shut down his investigation of Yang. Lemme also leaked details concerning his investigation to the Daytona Beach News Journal. The investigator had previously requested a full audit of the Yang contract with the DOT, a request that was denied. Lemme also became aware of something else outside the framework of the DOT contract—that Yang had been involved in producing a prototype vote switching program for use with touch screen voting machines and that Tom Feeney was in on the scam. The last time Clint Curtis spoke to Lemme, he remembers the silver haired investigator excited about where his case was leading. Lemme told Curtis that the cover up of Yang was coming from “as high up as I could imagine” and that he had “proof” that was “shocking.”

On Sunday, June 29, 2003, evidence indicates that Lemme drove from Tallahassee to Valdosta, Georgia, the home of Moody Air Force Base. A motel receipt indicated that Lemme checked in at the Knight’s Inn off Interstate 75 at 6:49 p.m. Lemme’s wife said that her husband left home for work on Monday, June 30, at 5:15 a.m., an hour earlier than usual. According to a Leon County Sheriff’s report, Lemme’s wife said she received a voice message after she returned home at 6:45 p.m. on Monday. The message was from her husband’s supervisor, Bob Clift, who informed her that earlier in the day, at 6:15 a.m., Lemme called into work, left a message, and said he would not be coming to work that day. Clift said he was checking up on Ray Lemme. Mrs. Lemme called Clift and told him that her husband was not at home. Mrs. Lemme told police that her husband was working on a “big case.” Mrs. Lemme filed a missing person report with the Leon County, Sheriff’s Office. Clift later determined that Ray Lemme made his earlier call to work at 6:15 a.m., one hour after he supposedly left his home for work, from a pay phone at the junction of Interstate 10 and Highway 1 in Jefferson County, Florida. Shortly after 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, the maid assigned to clean Lemme’s room—132—received no answer when she knocked. The door was locked. There was no response when the maid called the room’s telephone. The hotel manager then called the police.

The following is from the Valdosta Police Detective Report filed by Detective Craig Spencer and dated July 1, 2003: “On July 1, 2003 at approximately 1330 hours, I received a page advising me to be en route to Knights Inn at 2110 West Hill Avenue in reference to an unattended death.” When Spencer and other police officers and detectives arrived at the motel, the manager told them that the occupant of Room 132, Ray Lemme, was to have checked out by 11a.m. The officers yelled through the slightly ajar door but received no answer and they discovered the upper swing latch was locked. The officers used a special tool provided by the motel to open the swing latch lock. Spencer said that one of the officers entered the room and found a suicide note and then proceeded to the bathroom where Lemme was found dead in the bathtub. Police also discovered that the inside of Lemmes’s left elbow—the cubital tunnel—was slashed. There were spurts of blood on the wall but no blood found on the floor. A belt possibly used as a tourniquet and a double- edged straight razor blade were found on the side of the tub. A bath towel was unfolded and neatly placed on the floor next to the tub.

Later on July 1, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory in Moultrie informed the Valdosta Police that based on the “suicide” details, no autopsy would be performed on Lemme. Unlike Florida, Georgia does not perform mandatory autopsies. A doctor, with 25 years’ clinical experience, who was interviewed for this story claimed that the circumstances of Lemme’s death appeared to him to be a classic “mob hit.” If the Leon County Sheriff missing person report is to be believed, it is clear that someone other than Lemme checked into the Valdosta motel on Sunday evening using his name. Clearly, the Leon County Sheriff’s report contains a number of details that directly conflict with facts found in the Valdosta Police report. In addition, the Lowndes County, Georgia, Coroner’s report fails to indicate an estimated time of death based on a full medical examination—it surmised that the time of death was the same time as indicated on the suicide note: 8:10 a.m. on July 1.

An empty manila folder and a blank legal pad notebook were found on the hotel room’s desk along with an undated and unsigned suicide note written on lined paper, which lacked any identifiable fingerprints, from Lemme’s day planner. The note merely contained the time 8:10 a.m. with the following notation: “I love my family (family underlined once) with all my heart. I am sorry. I am depressed and in pain. Mary Ann (Lemme’s wife), I love you.” (“I love you” underlined twice). It was certainly not indicative of a person who was ecstatic that he was finally going to nail a long investigation that involved vote rigging, overbilling, and fraud abetted by the very top political leadership in Tallahassee. Interestingly, the last number on Lemme’s pager (an 850 960-XXXX) ended with the number “911.” It is also interesting that Lemme’s watch, when discovered by the police, was stopped at 12:34 p.m. on June 30–a possible indication that Lemme was trying to convey the time of a possible in extremis situation. Also, Lemme’s Florida driver’s license was in his room while his wallet was in the glove box of his car, which was parked in front of the room. Two motel receipts were found in Lemme’s room by the police. One was a check-in receipt dated June 29 and timed at 6:44 p.m. The other was a receipt, without a notation of check-in or check-out, dated June 30 and timed at 6:54 a.m. A witness told police that Lemme’s car was parked in front of his room on the afternoon of June 30.

Sergeant Eugene Bell of the Valdosta Police Department interviewed a 39-year old female guest who was staying in Room 236 over the weekend. She and her daughter noticed three men standing in the parking lot across from Lemme’s room at 8 a.m. on the morning of July 1. The behavior of the men made the guest suspicious enough that the woman initially believed the men were engaged in a drug deal. According to the police report, the camera used to photograph the crime scene was later discovered to have a defect in the flash memory card. The defect resulted in no usable photographs being submitted with the official police report.

Lemme was no stranger to Florida politics. His wife, Mary Ann, worked as a secretary for Martha Walters Barnett, a partner with the politically-connected Holland & Knight law firm in Tallahassee, where she specializes in campaign finance and election law and government contracts. Another Holland & Knight partner, Ginny Myrick, was appointed by Jeb Bush as the vice chair of the Florida Community Trust, a state land acquisition and grant program. Although officially a bipartisan law firm, even Democrats working for Holland & Knight largely support Jeb Bush. In addition, Bill McBride, Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2002 gubernatorial race and a Holland & Knight partner who had defeated former Attorney General Janet Reno in the Democratic primary amid reports of voting irregularities from around the state, commented that his race against Bush “may be the Democrats’ race to lose.”

The NASA connection to the money trail that is linked to the development of the vote switching program is of particular note. When the first sketchy details of the vote switching operation emerged, a Houston-controlled money tranche associated with an offshore entity called Five Star Trust, registered in the Isle of Man, was reported by high-level intelligence sources familiar with past Bush-related covert activities to be behind the operation. Five Star has been connected by these informed sources to have originated in 1983, when deposed Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush were allegedly looking for a repository for an estimated $3 billion in looted Philippine gold and gems. Since that time, Five Star’s accounts are said to funnel more funds from Saudi Arabia as well as cash reserves hidden away in offshore artificial shells by Enron before it collapsed. What is not yet certain is whether Sean O’Keefe, the NASA administrator and close Cheney friend who supported Feeney’s and Yang’s activities in Florida, facilitated the transfer of Five Star funds from Houston to Cape Canaveral using contract vehicles of both the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers to disburse the funds to the principal players. A NASA insider in Texas said he has long suspected large amounts of money have been moved into the United States and that these transfers involved NASA and Saudi and Chinese money sources.

There is additional information that the election rigging principals connected to the State of Florida and Jeb Bush may have also tried to use contractors tied closely to state contracts to parlay the touch screen software into Maine, which has proportional distribution of its electoral votes by congressional district, and Ohio, the key state in 2004. The information was provided by insiders in Tallahassee who are close to offices involved in procurement by the state government.

Sources close to U.S. intelligence pointed to a $29.6 million check supposedly issued on October 22, 2004, by Laurentian Bank in Montreal, Canada, that was rumored by intelligence circles to have been used to pay for the technicians who developed the software to rig the election. The computer voting machine technicians and maintenance personnel involved with the rigging were reported to have included Russians, Mexicans, and Brazilians.

According to Laurentian Bank, the check, a U.S. dollar “money order,” is a bogus instrument tied to Nigerian scamming activities. Laurentian Bank said that a U.S. dollar money order would never be for amounts over $1,000 and any higher amount would be in the form of a bank draft that would require the signature of two senior bank officers. In addition, the bank would never use a cell phone number (514-588-5569) on their checks. The payer on the “check,” Equity Financial Trust of Toronto, is said by the Canadian Fraud Office to be involved with Nigerian scammers. In fact, the Canadian Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions reports that Equity Financial Trust, Toronto, Ontario “may be violating provisions of the Bank Act (Canada) or other Canadian financial institution regulations” and “may also be conducting unauthorized banking transactions in the United States.”

The payee on the “check,” Five Star Investments, Ltd., once registered on the Isle of Man, is a Lexington, Kentucky-based entity tied to Marion “J.R.” Horn, convicted in 2002 by Judge Joseph M. Hood of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky for wire fraud. He was also ordered to serve time in Buckner Federal Penitentiary, North Carolina for a “mental study.” He eventually served an unusually light 18-month sentence while on parole for another fraud case. When interviewed by a researcher for this article, Horn expressed surprise that the check his lawyer in Nassau was waiting to clear a bank in New York, was, in fact, a fake. According to CIA documents obtained from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Five Star Trust may have, in fact, had a past relationship with Horn. According to Offshorebusiness.com, Five Star Trust has been linked with an “illegal” bank.

The connection of Enron money and Nigerian scammers to Five Star is intriguing because of a September 23, 2004, Houston Chronicle report that said Enron was involved in an off-the-books deal to invest in Nigerian power generation barges. Tina Trinkle, a former Merrill Lynch banker, said she was asked not to do the normal background checks for such a business deal.

A former Justice Department prosecutor who investigated the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) said that the bogus check and those responsible for it are typical “feints” used to mask actual clandestine money movements from law enforcement investigators. In addition, the former prosecutor said the purported check lacked the necessary SWIFT codes in the numbers found at the bottom of the check to facilitate the movement of money through international financial networks. He said that in his experience as a prosecutor, the name “Five Star Trust” came up in relation to the covert activities of the Nugan Hand Bank, a CIA-connected activity that was involved in covert activities in Australia and South East Asia.

Five Star entities, active and dissolved, have been discovered in the Isle of Man, the island of Nevis, the Bahamas, Florida, Kentucky, and Texas. Other Five Star-related entities stored large sums of money in the Cook Islands, according to U.S. intelligence sources, and these funds were directly linked to Khashoggi and BCCI. Khashoggi also approached top Nigerian leaders in 1982 to set up a company there that would deal exclusively in minerals. According to knowledgeable insiders, Khashoggi used a company called Triad to hammer out lucrative international deals on precious minerals. In 1994, Five Star Investments, Ltd., the entity tied to Horn, attempted to buy International Standards Group ISG), Ltd., a consulting company based in Boca Raton, Florida. According to the Palm Beach Post, Horn was the person who proposed the acquisition. ISG was also the target of a bid by UMI, Inc., a mortgage banker based in Coral Gables, Florida. The Palm Beach Post was never able to determine the source of UMI’s cash.

Phony checks are not the only telltale signs associated with some of the various Five Star entities. Another bogus document, a bogus UN customs declaration for a shipment to a “Counter Terrorist Unit” in Lagos, Nigeria, was also obtained in the investigation of this story.

Horn has had a running battle with the CIA over allegations that he is owed money for his past activities on behalf of the agency. Although Horn has produced a number of dubious documents to support his claims, one of the names mentioned in documents filed in U.S. court in Washington, DC is that of E. Warren Goss, an actual attorney in Boulder, Colorado. It has not been established if E. Warren Goss has any family connection to Porter Goss, the current CIA director.

In a September 17, 2003, declaration by Marilyn A. Dorn, Information Review Officer in the Directorate of Operations at the CIA, in response to Horn’s Freedom of Information Act request, it was determined that the agency had no records containing the names “Five Star Trust” or a reported subsidiary, “U.S. Mortgage and Trust (Bahamas).” Dorn reported that no records containing references to either entity were discovered but that two documents, cables—“field traffic consisting of one and a half pages and eight partial lines of message text, respectively, dating from the early 1980s”—were responsive to Horn’s request. It is interesting that the CIA admits the time frame because the genesis of Five Star Trust was 1983, when, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, then-Vice President Bush authorized a Boeing 747 with a special “carriage” to airlift several tons of gold bars from Clark Air Force base in the Philippines to LaGuardia Airport in New York.

The gold bars were then transported to the International Diamond Exchange Vaults near Rockefeller Center. A CIA proprietary firm called Oceaneering International of Houston was reportedly involved in airlifting some of the gold from the Philippines, in addition to sealifting the remainder to Oregon. After George W. Bush’s victory in 2000, the last of the gold in New York was moved to UBS Bank in Zurich. Marcos and Khashoggi set about to create Five Star Trust in 1983 as a means to create a vehicle to use the Philippine wealth to create and funnel fungible assets. In 1989, Five Star Trust was officially established in the Isle of Man by a Houston-based attorney who was a close friend of the Bush family.

The CIA’s explanation of its decision to withhold the release the two cables was partly based on the use of cryptonyms–artificial words used as substitutes for the actual name or identity of a “person, organization, or project.” The CIA statement continues: “when obtained and matched with other information, a cryptonym possesses a great deal of meaning for those who are able to fit it into the proper cognitive framework.” The denial of Horn’s FOIA request also stated that the two responsive documents could “reveal the existence or location of covert CIA field installations in multiple foreign countries.” In addition, the CIA stated that release of the documents in question would “reveal specific and sensitive subjects in which the CIA is or was interested.” Finally, disclosure of the requested documents was denied because of “foreign relations.” The agency emphasized that, “in carrying out its legally authorized intelligence activities, the CIA engages in activities that if known by foreign nations, could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to U.S. relations with affected or interested nations.”

The story of this corruption is nothing new. What is new is the purpose. The use of this old and covert tranche of money for a special Bush operation to deny the American people their right to a free and fair vote was not the typical illegal sale of arms to a terrorist nation, the overthrow of a foreign government, or the payment of bribes to foreign potentates. It was a high crime in every constitutional sense. The target was the American political system and not just in 2004 but also in 2003, 2002, and 2000. The scandal goes right up to the White House and the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee. It involves an extremely crooked Florida national politician and other Florida state government officials. And, as with all modern American political scandals, we have at least one dead body, a number of whistleblowers and anonymous “Deep Throats,” powerful but corrupt politicians, counterfeit and real documents, con men, and a money trail tied to off-shore foreign bank accounts.

People may wonder why a group of intelligence insiders would come forward to a non-major media outlet with such tantalizing information at this time. The corporate-beholden media cannot be trusted to report such a news story. A common theme from all the intelligence and ex-intelligence officials with whom I have communicated is that George W. Bush made a major mistake in attacking and purging the clandestine service of the CIA. The “agency,” which extends far beyond the confines of Langley, Virginia, is having its revenge. It has willingly exposed a portion of a traditional clandestine CIA money route to expose the vote scam that was used to ensure Bush’s election.

The clues, for example, the bogus check, were conveyed to us as exactly that—clues. Those markers pointed to the illegal nature of the covert money flows. The connections between NASA contracts, Texas, and Florida were additional clues to one of the major sources of the money used for the vote rigging. There were a number of roads that led to the same destination. But that is the nature of covert intelligence. Some patriotic and brave people, who have served in silence for a number of decades, have chosen their country over a corrupt family and administration. It is now time for the constitutional process to begin. Rectification of the criminal conspiracy that denied John Kerry and John Edwards the White House must begin in Ohio, and extend to Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, and other states where votes were flipped by computers from the Kerry to the Bush column. Past elections must also be investigated and those who were done in by this fraud, namely, people like Max Cleland, Gray Davis, Al Gore, and others must also have their day in court.

Posted by: DP at December 6, 2004 02:20 PM

Wow, out of all that text, still not any evidence whatsoever demonstrating the suppression of a single vote.

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at December 8, 2004 09:11 PM

no evidence of God either
yet when we look around ourselves
we simply know

Posted by: DP at December 8, 2004 09:30 PM

So what you know, DP, by just looking around yourself, is that the only legitimate elections are the ones the Democrats win?

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell, isn’t it?

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at December 8, 2004 09:54 PM

what I know in U.S. elections
as I look around myself
is no more legitimate elections

it is later than you think

Posted by: DP at December 8, 2004 11:03 PM

To the few Democrats and liberals still insisting in voter fraud. You keep tossing out these accusations with no proof and continue to be proven wrong in state after state. Ohio will be no different. Do you not see why the lawyers of Kerry’s are not pushing this issue? That means it cannot be verified and they have no confidence in the recount or the fraud accusations..
You need to follow the majority. If not then you are not a Democrat but either a socialist or worse an anarchist.
In addition in four years when you whine and cry about election fraud let’s remember to have something besides your stupidity to fall back on. If there is fraud then prove it in court. If you do I will back the change if not then shut the %+_# up I hate liars. And try not to believe every person you meet that cry’s wolf. Liars are everywhere and have their own agendas.

Wimpy1

Posted by: wimpy1 at December 12, 2004 04:09 PM