Election Lawyers, in Refocus of 2004 Ohio Election Lawsuit, Ask US AG Mukasey to Save Rove’s Emails, US Chamber to Name Complicit Contributors, In Effort to Protect Integrity of 2008 Election

OhioNewsBureau

By John Michael Spinelli

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Plaintiff attorneys for a lawsuit filed in 2006 that sought voting records to prove whether their suspicion that Republicans conspired to suppress the votes of two active Democratic demographics that helped President Bush win the state and a second term in the White House, changed the focus of their lawsuit Thursday, saying they will now focus on learning more about the roles played by Karl Rove, Bush's political architect and Mike Connell, a long-time Bush family confidant and Information technology guru – now working for Sen. John McCain – who as an information technology tradesman, built various computer systems that produced election irregularities that favored Republicans and whose work, if not ferreted out and stopped now, may do the same this year for McCain as it did for Bush against Kerry four years ago.

 Ohio became famous, or infamous depending on your political persuasion, for catapulting George W. Bush into a second term as the nation’s president. In 2004 the state was run by Republicans, who held all statewide offices and controlled both houses of the legislature. The Secretary of State at the time was Kenneth J. Blackwell, an African American from Cincinnati who previously had served as State Treasurer and was in his second term as the state’s chief elections officer. At the time, Blackwell was also the co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election committee. When the narrow election was over, Bush won Ohio from his Democratic rival, Massachusetts’ Sen. John Kerry, by the slim margin of about 118, 000 plus votes, or few than a dozen votes for each of Ohio’s 11,000 polling locations.

Email, Documents Asked to be Held to Reenergize, Refocus 2006 Election Lawsuit

Cliff Arnebeck, the lead attorney in the King Lincoln Bronzeville lawsuit, was accompanied by Henry Eckert, a former public utilities commissioner, and Bob Fitrakis, a political science professor at Columbus State College and election integrity advocate who manages the Columbus Free Press, a progressive news sources, and who has made failed attempts to run for Congress and governor.

Arnebeck, who spoke to reporters including the OhioNewsBureau at a press conference held Thursday in Downtown Columbus, presented letters he has sent to Michael B. Mukasey, US Attorney General, and Matthew Kairis, an attorney with the Jones Day law firm, asking them to hold certain named documents that would be used to reenergize and refocus the King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association vs. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner now pending before Federal District Judge Elgenon Marbley. The purpose of the lawsuit, filed in August of 2006, was to “preserve the ballots and related materials for the 2004 Ohio presidential election with respect to which the 22-month retention schedule was about to expire.” The broader purpose of the lawsuit, however, was the “protection against an ongoing conspiracy to interfere with the voting rights of African American and college student voters that was evident in the 2004 Ohio presidential election, and with respect to which this court ordered relief on Election Day 2004 in an action brought by the Ohio Democratic Party.” Arnebeck’s memorandum in support of his original motion stated that the original complaint “sought intervention of the court through appointment of a special master to oversee the integrity of the 2006 Ohio election and protect against interference with voting rights in that important election.

Ohio RICO Claim for Rove, US Chamber

Arnebeck told Mukasey he wants to “assert an Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim against Mr. Karl Rove and others based upon their activities in 2000 to illegally use corporate treasury money and government power to establish single faction dominance in the United States, military dominance in the world and generally undermine the rule of law as it had developed over the course of the past century.

The letter to Mukasey, a copy of which was also sent to John Conyers, Jr., Chairman, US House Committee on the Judiciary, asks him to gather together Mr. Rove’s emails from the White House to the Justice Department, the FBI, and various governmental agencies, because they are relevant to the factual issues of the case.

“We are concerned about reports that Mr. Rove not only destroyed e-mails, but also took steps to destroy the hard drives from which they had been sent.” [Arnebeck letter to Muaksey]

Arnebeck’s letter to Kairis asks for the names of contributors and dates and amounts of corporate treasury contributions to the US Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform that have been used in Ohio and elsewhere to influence state candidate elections for supreme court and attorney general. Arnebeck says he intends to assert an OCPA/RICO claim against them, in connection with their “continuing activities, in coordination with Mr. Rove’s strategy” to influence elections in Ohio and around the nation.

Data Expert to Testify on Voting Irregularities

In addition to the other attorneys in the room, Arnebeck had Stephen Spoonamore on a speaker phone. Spoonamore, a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in data security and designing computer systems to “hunt for fraud” for credit card companies and banks, among other clients, said electronic voting systems can never be secure. Moreover, he emphasized that had the kind of voting irregularities that happened in 2004 with “down ticket” candidates in Ohio, when compared with votes for president, happened with his main stay clients, “someone who have been arrested and would be in jail.”

Spoonamore, whose 20-years of experience in most aspects of high technology from retrofits to upgrades to equipping makes him a solid witness for plaintiff attorneys and professional pedigree includes working on B.E.N.S (Business Executives for National Security), said he asked Blackwell about this very issue in 2004, but said the then-Ohio SOS declined to about it. Spoonamore said electronic voting systems are “frustratingly unauditable” and said that even though elections in Ohio are run by 88 bi-partisan boards, an argument opponents of voting conspiracy raise to show one party would have to be in league with the other to throw an election, it doesn’t matter, because the technician provided by the voting machine company knows what none of them can or will ever know and their participation is irrelevant.

Mike Connell: Bush Family, Republican Party IT Handyman

Fitrakis, who has authored many articles and a book about voting irregularities, brought the name of Mike Connell up. Connell, a long-time information technology handyman for George H.W. Bush and his sons, George and Jeb, was instrumental in presidential politics in 2000 when George W. lost to John McCain in New Hampshire and the Bush campaign decided to “take the gloves off.“ Taking the gloves off, meant building voting systems and a community of various special interest groups, following the lead of Big Tobacco when it was being sued for causing cancer that would tilt elections enough for Bush to win. Once won, Connell turned his attention to other systems in other states like Mississippi and Georgia, among others. Connell worked for Jeb in Florida, among other groups, and is now working for Sen. John McCain.

Fishing Expedition Now a Rifle Shot

Arnebeck said Connell may argue against being deposed, claiming it is nothing more than a fishing expedition or an attempt to interfere with his work with the McCain campaign or just a partisan venture to discredit and handicap McCain. Arnebeck said the focus of the lawsuit has turned from a “fishing expedition to a rifle shot,” and that protecting the integrity of this year’s election is paramount because the “bad guys are still the same bad guys but working a different way.”

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. He now serves as the OhioNews Bureau Chief for ePluribus Media Journal. Find ONB archives here.

To send a tip or suggest a story to this correspondent, send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it