Shortages of voting machines in Democratic strongholds, while unused machines remained in the warehouse
Long lines in the rain, with people waiting up to five hours to vote
Nevertheless, four hours after polls closed on election night, Kerry had a solid lead of 3%. Exit polls predicted Kerry over Bush in Ohio by 4 points. Returns across the rest of the country indicated a close election that came down to Ohio only. As Ohio's 20 electoral votes went, so would go the presidency.
Then, at 12:20, the computers went dark that were reporting the running tally of the vote count from Blackwell's office in the state capital. The country was in suspense for 100 minutes, with all eyes on Ohio. When the computer came back up, the numbers had reversed. Bush was now 3% ahead, and his lead held through the night.
This much was known the day after the election. Only a year afterward was it revealed that the computer that "came back up" at 2 AM was not the same computer that went down at 12:20. In fact, it wasn't in Columbus, OH at all; it was in Chattanooga, TN, and it belonged to a company called SmarTech Solutions, computer consultants to the Bush White House, to the Congressional Republicans, and to several Christian Right groups. SmarTech was the same company that had fallen on its sword a year earlier when 3 million White House emails could not be retrieved. It was SmarTech that hosted the secret White House email server GWBush43, and the man in charge was "White House IT Guru" Mike Connell.
In the wake of the 2004 election, lawyers sued to have ballots preserved so they could be re-counted, and sought information about the entire debacle. The lawsuits worked their way through the courts for 4 years, and finally in 2008, Connell was called to appear for a deposition. It was then that the lawyers discovered Connell was an honest, God-fearing man. He would not lie in court. Sources within the McCain campaign leaked reports to the lawyers that Connell had received threats against his person and his family if he went ahead and testified. Connell's deposition was held in November, but his lawyers raised frivolous objections that effectively shielded him from having to answer any questions. The objections were overruled a few weeks later, and Connell's return deposition was scheduled for January.
But Connell died in a small plane on December 19. It was ruled a mechanical failure. No investigation was held.
Connell's Republican colleague Stephen Spoonamore had earlier testified in the case, explaining how Connell had been hired to create a Tennessee mirror site to the Ohio Secretary of State web page, in which a back door would be linked directly to the White House. After the Columbus computer was replaced with the Chatanooga mirror, the White House was able to read and write from the computer's cache of election results in real time , and these numbers were fed directly to the press, and to the public. Here is a video interview with Spoonamore.
Alvin Greene, Candidate for Senate from South Carolina, 2010
Congressman Vic Rawl, a popular and formidable candidate for Senate was defeated in the 2010 Democratic primary by Alvin Greene. Greene "won" in a landslide, despite the fact that he did not campaign, had no funding, no ads or signs, no web site, and no political background.
This one was covered in the New York Times.
...everyone wants to know how Mr. Greene, an unemployed Army veteran who had been completely unknown until Tuesday, inexplicably defeated a heavily favored former legislator and judge to become the state's Democratic nominee for the Senate -- and the state's latest political circus act"Even in Manning, a town of 4,000 where everybody knows everybody, nobody seems to know Alvin Greene. "He just all of a sudden shows up and -- boom!" said L. G. Mathis, 61, the owner of L. G.'s Cut and Style, a barber shop downtown.
Greene's victory was a convenience for incumbent Senator Jim De Mint, a Tea Party Republican who has been embroiled in a sex scandal. Greene continued his non-campaign, and De Mint won essentially unopposed in November.
Friday:
Part 4 -- The 2016 Election
Hillary won the Primary, but Bernie
won the Exit Polls
Signs the General Election was stolen by
Trump
Resistance to The Recount
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