Opinion Editorial

UPDATE:  Attorney Arnebeck notified Ohio reporters that Judge Solomon Oliver of the Norther District of Ohio US District Court issued a notice regarding a hearing at 2 p.m. Friday, October 31.  The notice asked counsel and parties to be present in Cleveland for argument for motions to quash and compel in regard to the subpoena for Mike Connell's testimony on the King Lincoln Case.

Arnebeck said he had filed the Secretary of State's computer architecture maps for the 2004 and 2006 Ohio elections which show that Connell's GovTech was functioning within the SOS' office at the same time his New Media Communications company was doing IT work for the campaigns of President George W. Bush and other Republicans.

Columbus, Ohio: A key witness in a lawsuit alleging the presidential vote in Ohio was stolen in 2004 filed a declaration Wednesday identifying the kingpin attack (also known as the Man in the Middle plan) as the method used to compromise state computer systems and deliver a second term to President George W. Bush.  The kingpin attack was perpetrated by SMARTech, the IT services provider of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Expedited Hearing for Bush IT Expert Sought to Learn if Buckeye Vote is "Tuned" for McCain

OhioNewsBureau received a declaration filed by Stephen Spoonamore, of Wooster, Ohio, as part of the federal court lawsuit known as King Lincoln Bronzeville vs. Jennifer Brunner. This lawsuit, originally filed in August 2006 against Ken Blackwell, who was the Ohio Secretary of State for the 2004 and 2006 elections, seeks to discover whether Ohio election systems were compromised in 2004. As part of the lawsuit, lawyers have subpoenaed  Mike Connell -- a long-time IT handyman to the Bush family and RNC, who has also worked for Blackwell in 2004 and 2006 as well as serviced other Republican sites. The lawyers are hoping Connell will disclose what he knows about vulnerabilities to "cyber attacks upon the integrity of the 2008 election."

Spoonamore, a data security expert who is aiding plaintiff lawyers, said the kingpin attack requires a computer to be inserted into the communications flow of an IT system. The advantage of this attack is that the computer placed in the kingpin position has the ability to change information at both ends of an IT system.

Spoonamore wrote in his declaration: "As early results showed Kerry ahead, at about 11PM, I noticed a trend in a very few counties (I believe I noted 8 counties on election night).that began reporting radically different ratios of  Kerry to Bush votes. All in favor of Mr. Bush."   This discrepancy has come to be know as the "Connally Anomaly," where the results of a down-ballot judicial race indicated wildly different voter preferences than the race for president.  Spoonamore, whose data security company services world-wide clients like MasterCard, said other experts in voting and statistics claim it's "impossible...1 in a Billion" to believe that tens of thousands  voted for an extremely liberal minority judge -- Democrat C. Ellen Connally -- who had done no campaigning in the county -- but cast no vote for Kerry.

On a second analysis, Spoonamore found that this Connally Anomaly occurred in 12-14 Ohio counties.  Spoonamore's suggestions at the time that the information flow might have been diverted toa kingpin computer were dismissed.

Reviewing documents provided by the Ohio Attorney General that show the system architecture four- and two-years ago, Spoonamore said his analysis now, as it was then, confirms his conclusion that a kingpin attack to flip votes from Kerry to Bush had been set up by SmartTech -- hired by then-Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a conservative, Evangelical Republican who  co-chaired the Ohio Bush/Cheney campaign.

Clifford O. Arnebeck, lead plaintiff attorney in the King Lincoln Bronzeville vs. Jennifer Brunner lawsuit, believes the same kingpin or man in the middle set up may be in place this year in Colorado and New Mexico and other states.

"The computer system at SMARTech had the correct placement, connectivity, and computer experts necessary to change the election in any manner desired by the controllers of the SMARTech computers," Spoonamore, a Republican who supported John McCain for president, wrote.

Detailing how the kingpin attack may have worked, he explained that any vote tabulator with a known IP address and connected to the Internet at the county level could be addressed by the SMARTech kingpin computer. He said the SmartTech computer would "as the results of the evening proceed, be able to know how many votes Bush needed to steal from Kerry, and flip enough votes on the desired county tabulators to reverse the outcome of the election."

The facts "now established of creating SMARTech as a KingPin," according to Spoonamore, confirm his belief  that theft occurred the night of the 2004 election. He said they also confirm, are "fully consistent" with and "factually explain" the Connally Anomaly.

I believe on election night 2004, due to my long expertise and work in computer attacks on Banking, Government and Communication systems reversed the outcome of the 2004 Ohio Presidential Race was subjected to a KingPin attack reversing Kerry votes and making them Bush votes. All information that has come forth since then has further confirmed this belief, and the actions of some parties, notably Triad in removing Hard Drives which would have shown these actions and the refusal of Mr. Connell to testify about what he knows about the SMARTech KingPin set up, further confirms my professional opinion.

However, Spoonamore indicated a forensic analysis of the complete county tabulator system in these counties -- especially their hard drives -- would, along with complete monitoring and address logs,  be the only way to detect the kingpin set up.  Saying such a system wouldn't meet the rugged requirements demanded by banking or credit card functions, the cyber data security expert noted the kingpin set up was not designed with any security or monitoring in mind:

They are systems which will work easily, but are based on the belief all users and the system itself will be trusted not to be hacked," he said, adding that "there are obviously many parties willing, with motivation, and able to hack an election for a desired outcome.

As an expert in fraud detection and infrastructure protection systems, Spoonamore said that to minimize the chances of theft in 2008, each county should completely disconnect all vote tabulators from any internet connectivity before, during and after the voting. "The tabulators should not be touched or accessed by any one or any electronic system," he said, underscoring that they should also have no "wireless, IR, Blue Tooth or other connectivity."

He also warned that election night shenanigans could come from preprogrammed hacks or sophisticated attacks.  Should the results of the 2008 Presidential election be questionable, Spoonamore said that only a qualified forensic analysis by qualified experts can reveal how the "manipulation has occurred."

For 2008 Presidential election, Triad GSI -- responsible for programming the punch-card tabulators and voter registration software for many Ohio counties in 2004 -- is again entrusted for processing voter registration databases by 55 counties. In 25 of these counties, Arnebeck writes, Triad GSI is "actually hosting these databases on its computers." Triad GSI also hosted the county boards of electiotns Web pages and election results on their Webserver in 2004. According to election watchers, they still do for a few counties.

OhioNewsBureau has written previously about Mr. Connell and his attorney's claim that he cannot be deposed before the election because he is too busy working on it for the John McCain campaign.Connell's attorneys have stated that revealing trade secrets, as could happen if he were to come forward and be deposed, would result in the disclosure of certain trade secrets that someone else, like Spoonamore, could use to compete against him.

Spoonamore labeled that reason as "absurd" and said he is as unlikely to compete for jobs with Mr. Connell as a siding contractor would compete for work an electrician is trained to do. "I am not aware of any work Mr. Connell does that I, or my firms would be interested in working on, " he wrote, adding that he and Mr. Connell have in fact referred business lead to each other and "mutually contributed out skills to proposals for projects in International Freedom Initiatives."

Ohio Lawyers Chase Connell for Sit Down

On the issue of trade secrets, Arnebeck wrote in his motion to the court supporting his subpoena to Mr. Connell that "information about election fraud and the law does not accord trade secret protection to criminal activity." In July 2008, Arnebeck asked US Attorney General Michael Mukasey to hold e-mails of Karl Rove who was identified in the lawsuit as the "principal perpetrator of a pattern of corrupt activity" as defined by the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act.

Jennifer Brunner, who used Blackwell as a political battering ram to win office in 2006 and who is waged in a war with Ohio GOP officials over voting registration and voting in this year's hotly-contested race for the White House, agreed in September to allow Arnebeck and his team to pursue the deposition of Mr. Connell. So far Mr. Connell has resisted being deposed and filed a motion to quash Arnebeck's effort to bring him in for questioning.

Arnebeck says that deposing Connell now is key to learning what might happen this year. Arnebeck and others involved in the case fear that Karl Rove, a long-time political confidante of President Bush and Republicans including John McCain, has intimidated Connell to not testify for fear that Connell's wife would be criminally prosecuted if Connell "implicated Rove in the theft of the 2004 Ohio election." Arnebeck thinks Connell can shed light on whether Rove, as he suspects, is again ready to "electronically steal the 2008 presidential election."

Arnebeck told Judge Solomon Oliver Jr., of the Northern District Federal Court, that "Rove's reported blocking of Connell's testimony is an obstruction of justice, and this court can and should put an immediate stop to it."

With John McCain trailing his Democratic challenger Barack Obama in most states by a widening margin, it seems suspicious that McCain is so confident he will win next Tuesday.  McCain, behind in the polls, in fundraising, in early voting, has said with confidence that he has Obama "just where he wants him" in the final weeks of the election. McCain has told reporters he will win when the vote is counted, especially in a close election within the margin of error.

As reported previously by ONB, McCain has his own secrets to divulge. Inquiring minds -- Independents, Republicans and Democrats  -- want to know what does McCain know and when did he learn it about what will happen next Tuesday?

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.
Photo credits: (c) 2008 AnHarris, istockphoto

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