Thread by @jennycohn1

This analogy is unfair. In 04, exit polls suggested Kerry had won, and the Bush administration itself had helped fund exit polls in Ukraine that year & supported a Ukrainian election re-do based in part based on the exit polls. In 2020, exit polls favored Biden, not Trump. 1/

https://twitter.com/jadler1969/status/1332506732443164677

2/ US State Dept commentary re the 2004 election in Ukraine and the discrepancy between the exit polls (which suggested a pro-West Yuschenko victory) and official results (which suggested a pro-Russia Yanukovych victory). 2001-2009.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/3…

3/ The 2004 election in Ukraine was re-done and produced the opposite result, consistent with the exit polls.

4/ Exit polls in the US around the same time as Ukraine’s 2004 election suggested a solid Kerry victory. Voters had every reason to question why the Bush administration considered exit polls reliable in Ukraine but not in the US at the same time. newyorker.com/magazine/2004/…

Discussion of Ohio 2004. 5/ vanityfair.com/news/2005/03/h…

Ohio’s Secretary of State that year, Ken Blackwell, was also a co-chair of Bush’s reelection campaign in Ohio. 6/ electiondefense.org/how-to-part-ten

Ken Blackwell had also tried unsuccessfully to ban exit polls in Ohio in 2004. 7/ fjc.gov/sites/default/…

Ken Blackwell is a fundamentalist Christian who opposes same sex marriage and abortion even in the case of rape or incest. 8/ toledoblade.com/local/politics…

This discusses Blackwell’s position on abortion. 9/ scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewconten…

Blackwell ran for Governor in 06. But on the morning of the election, EPluribus published proof that GOP operatives w/ ties to Blackwell had routed Ohio’s reported results in 04 to a server in TN owned by Smartech, which also hosted the Bush WH emails. 10/ dailykos.com/story/2006/11/…

To be clear, this did not prove fraud. But it was shocking to some nonetheless. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but Blackwell then lost his race for Governor. 11/

Here’s a Wired article confirming what EPluribus proved in 2006, while noting that reported results are not the vote tallies themselves. 12 wired.com/2007/04/did-oh…

But a Republican-owned company named Triad also had remote access to at least some of the county tabulators in Ohio, which compiled precinct totals. (Triad provided voting equipment to about 1/2 of Ohio’s counties in 04.) 13/ cases.justia.com/federal/distri…

Triad is owned and run by the Rapp family, including Brett Rapp and Todd Rapp. I found this My Life profile for Todd Rapp, which says his interests include the Second Amendment and “pro-life.” 14/

Mike Connell, who built architecture that routed Ohio’s reported results to Smartech apparently thought abortion was murder. He died in a private plane crash b4 the trial in the case alleging the 04 election was rigged in favor of Bush, an evangelical. 15/ cbsnews.com/news/republica…

None of this suffices to prove fraud. But if provides more than enough cause for concern, and a whole lot more than anything the current pro-Trump faction has come up with. 16/

This statement by @Spoonamore could not be corroborated, but also provided much legitimate cause for concern. 17/

https://twitter.com/kelly2277/status/1229402675483205632

When Connell was deposed, he acknowledged building the architecture that allowed Ohio’s results to be re-routed to Smartech in TN in the event the main server failed. He said he did not know why the Smartech server kicked in bc he saw no indication the main server had failed. 18/

Connell denied having knowledge of wrongdoing during his deposition, but was then subpoenaed for trial. He died before the trial. Spoonamore had been speaking with him in the interim period & thought his conscience was getting to him. A tragic event all around. 19/

Here’s a link to Connell’s deposition transcript via @TheBradBlog. 20/ bradblog.com/Docs/Depositio…

I just noticed that an article about Connell and Ohio 2004 has been tagged by Twitter as potentially “spammy” and “unsafe”. This is the danger of equating Trump’s lies about 2020 w/ legitimate concerns about 2004. 21/

Here are just a few of Team Trump’s lies and misleads. 22/

More. 23/

And by the way, Ken Blackwell is trying to help Trump stay in office. He recently appeared on Steve Bannon’s war room podcast. 24/

Ken Blackwell also co-chairs the International Foundation for Electoral Systems w/ Tad DeVine who worked w/ Paul Manafort to help Pro-Russia Yanukovych make a come back after the 2004 election re-do. They promote “democracy” by assisting other countries w/ election tech. 🙄24/

Isn’t this rich? 25/ ifes.org/who-we-are/boa…

Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. Again, Ken Blackwell chairs this group. 26/

Exit polls favoring Biden, not Trump. via @tdmsresearch 27/ tdmsresearch.com/2020/11/04/202…

The greatest disparities [between exit polls and official results in 04] were concentrated in battleground states—particularly Ohio.” 28/

Quote from Harper’s article: electiondefense.org/how-to-rig-an-…

Article about DeVine working with Manafort to help the pro-Russia Yanukovych (discussed in post 1). 29/ vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/b…

BTW, during the 2004 race between pro-Russia Yanukovych and pro-West Yuschenko, Yuschenko was poisoned with dioxin. According to the investigation, the poison was added to the rice which was served at the table."
30/ thesun.co.uk/news/5955967/r…

“Replying to the question if he believed the Russian leader Vladimir Putin was behind the poisoning Yushchenko replied: ‘I have an answer, but I cannot voice it.’” 31/

BTW, despite prior denials, ES&S sold systems with remote access to county tabulators from 2000-2006, so including the 2004 election timeframe. ES&S won’t identify its remote access customers. This was reported by Kim Zetter in 2018. 32/ vice.com/en/article/mb4…

Most Ohio counties used ES&S or Triad machines in 2004. Two Ohio counties that year used Diebold, which also sold systems w/ remote access to county election management systems (which include county central tabulators for compiling precinct totals). 33/ votersunite.org/info/EvenARemo…