Finally, An elected president

 11/5/08: Finally, An Elected President

 

Barack Obama was overwhelmingly elected by citizens in all regions of the country.  Unlike the past two elections where the results were contested in two states run by partisans who rigged the results, this election was won hands down by the person who ran the best campaign.  This is not to say that there were not  massive problems with voting systems in many states.  But this election did not come down to one state or county controlled by corrupt officials.

 

Four years ago, VR was formed out of the chaos of the 2004 election. Since then, we and all  of you have fought a long battle to ensure that our elections are fair, honest and transparent.  We demanded accurate voting machines and paper ballots.  In this election, both Florida and Ohio, now with paper ballots, went Blue and there is no one questioning that result.

 

Over the past several months, we have raised the specter of a Man in the Middle computer attack on the vote tabulators controlled by partisan evangelicals.  We identified Michael Connell as the key GOP IT expert who created these nefarious networks.  We took legal action against Connell in the form of a federal deposition.  Karl Rove responded by threatening Connell to either take the fall or keep his mouth shut.   Connell's Bush/Cheney attorneys did everything possible to keep  Connell from testifying.

 

Two weeks ago, Rove was confidently saying that John McCain could win ten battleground states to become President.  McCain was confidently telling everyone that he would win with a surge in the wee hours of election night.

 

Well, last Friday, something important happened:  Michael Connell was forced to appear before Solomon Oliver,  a Clinton appointed Afro-American federal Judge in Cleveland. After Attorney Cliff Arnebeck accused Connell in open court of rigging elections for Karl Rove, the judge ordered Connell to submit to a sworn deposition 18 hours before the polls were to open.  On Monday at noon, Connell was placed under oath and  grilled about election fraud, Man in the Middle attacks, Trojan horse manipulations and threats from Rove.

 

And guess what happened?  Connell didn't know a thing! He had no knowledge of any secret steps to change the vote-counts, in any past elections--or in the election to come. He stonewalled like a champion, denying everything.

It was a remarkable performance; but what was even more remarkable was the abrupt reversal, just hours later, by Karl Rove. Rove wrote on his blog late Monday that Obama would win by a landslide--even in those states he had previously predicted McCain would win.

 

In other words, Rove pulled the plug, because he felt the heat, and knew that using Connell to rig this election too would be too risky.

In short, at VR, with all the help from you, our affiliates, our supporters and others, we played a role in helping to make this presidential election more fair than the past two.  Our education campaign, our paper ballot campaign, our whistleblower campaign and our legal strategies worked.  That's what democracy is all about.

 

Thank all of you for your confidence in our work, your dedication and your kind and generous support.  We hope to continue to do our small part to make our government more accountable to everyone.