Netcraft Shows Smartech Running Ohio Election Servers

goombah99 writes "Netcraft is showing that an event happened in the Ohio 2004 election that is difficult to explain. The Secretary of State's website, which handles election reporting, normally is directed to an Ohio-based IP address hosted by the Ohio Supercomputer Center. On Nov. 3 2004, Netcraft shows the website pointing out of state to a server owned by Smartech Corp. According to the American Registry on Internet Numbers, Smartech's block of IP addresses 64.203.96.0 – 64.203.111.255 encompasses the entire range of addresses owned by the Republican National Committee. Smartech hosted the recently notorious gbw43.com domain used from the White House in apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act, from which thousands of White House emails vanished." Update: 04/25 01:24 GMT by KD : ePluribus Media published a piece called Ken Blackwell Outsources Ohio Election Results to GOP Internet Operatives, Again on election eve 2006, when a similar DNS switch to Smartech occurred. They have been investigating the larger story of IT on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for two years.

Comments

Misunderstanding

[daveschroeder]

Your own submission answers your question.

Nothing "changed" or was "transferred". http://election.sos.state.oh.us/ is a special web site in operation for elections. Otherwise, it points to http://www.sos.state.oh.us/ as it does now. It appears that the State of Ohio contracted with SmartTech for hosting, processing, and dissemination of the election results via the special elections web site, when it is in operation.

That probably won't be a good enough answer for people, though. Regardless, it appears that SmartTech has obvious ties to the Republican Party, and hosts many sites for various Republican political interests. The Secretary of State of Ohio is a partisan political position. This doesn't mean there aren't questions that can be raised or points to be debated.

The sad truth is that partisans are involved in just about every aspect of the voting and elections process, and that's not going to change, ever.

Witness the decades-old joke from Democratic stronghold cities: "Why did the Democrat walk into the cemetery? To thank his voters."

It's April 2007. Anyone who believes the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen (or not) isn't going to change what they think now.

Re:Misunderstanding

[Jeian]

Save your logical explanations... Slashdot wants a conspiracy, so they're going to see a conspiracy.

Re:Misunderstanding

[tedshultz]

It's April 2007. Anyone who believes the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen (or not) isn't going to change what they think now. Thats not true at all. In 2004 I thought all the people who were saying the election was stolen were crazy tin foil hat types. The more I learn, the more I realize that it is much more likely that I was the blind sheep type. No one is debating that lots of non standard and illegal activities took place during the 2004 election, the only question is how wide spread, and how well organized those activities were. The more stories that come out, the more people will start to change their minds.
--crazy tin foil hat guy

I fail to understand...

[Barkmullz]

...why this is revelant. This sounds like an association fallacy to me.

Yawn

[pudge]

There is no evidence of any kind that any votes we changed through this server "switch" bullshit, or that even if it DID happen, that it possibly could have or would have gone undetected. The counties would surely have seen that their reported results were not what was being reported by the state. If there was going to be fraud, it would have had to happen at the county level, and if it happened there, then why bother to do it at the state level?

This doesn't even pass the smell test.

As the Democrats' own statistician, Jasjeet Sekhon, who coauthored their 2004 post-election report said:

More voters supported Bush in Ohio in 2004 than Kerry. There is no scientific evidence that they did not. There were some irregularities (such as the allocation of voting machines), but they were not large enough to change the outcome. Bush won in 2004; Democrats have to admit that he really did if they are to fix their electoral problems much like how an alcoholic fist has to admit that s/he has a problem.

Re:Breaking News

[Markemp]

Just because the other side isn't following the rules set by the Geneva Conventions doesn't mean we are freed from the responsibilities of following them. I'm pretty sure we're bound by them regardless of the antics of our enemies. I'll have to do some research to back this up, but I'm willing to bet there is no clause that waives your responsibilities to follow GC under certain circumstances.

Maxwell's deamon

[goombah99]

I've done stat analysis too. I concur with you that accusations based on statistical about what happened in florida don't seem to be strongly supported. That is to say the statistics are not conclusive. But I've also follwed the ohio reports pretty closely too. Some of the reports are incorrect. But some can't be so easily debunked. The strongest cases indicate that shoddy voting equipment created long lines that detered voters in selected precincts. It's also now certain that the recounts were rigged (they precounted then selected the precincts without problems for the official counts. And there are precints where the votes and voters don't add up. You always expect some of that so one can never really put a finger on if there was too much or too little. All very statistically nebulous. and hence an opportunity to tilt things and hide in the noise.

This is why getting the results early and having the ability to delay posting them enlarges the opportunity for dirty tricks. For example here's a sort of maxwell's deamon way to rig an eleciton completely legally. If you look at the early returns you will see lots of mistakes. Some will go in your favor some will go against you. If you selectively inquire with precinct judges only on the cases where the votes go against you, you can make gains. Indeed both parties routinely do this after the elections so that's not even science fiction. But now suppose your party, and only your party, is magically granted the power to do this on election night itself. Getting totals "fixed" is a lot easier when things are in flux. a simple phone call can say "Hey that can't be right, read those numbers again" will get you an updated total. After the election is done getting changes is much harder. Hence eraly knowledge helps. Running the reporting site would be a windfall.

This is ridiculous.

[Grendel Drago]

That would make you French, possibly Spanish or German. In the US unemployment is nearing a historic low, the stock market and economy a historic high and petroleum products are expensive but hardly horribly so if all the full-size SUVs I see on the road are any indication.

Falling real wages, an unemployment rate that's only dropping because people have been out of work so long they're considered to have left the workforce, a steadily rising poverty rate and a negative personal savings rate are also indications. They don't affect the sorts of people who drive SUVs quite as much as they affect some others, but these things do exist.

Well, if we stopped funding the Palestinian Authority and encouraged a bit of civil unrest in Iran then we'd be "entrenched" in a battle with terrorism that we'd be winning faster then we're winning it now.

(a) At what rate do you see us "winning"? Please provide a situation that you think the current policies are leading to (e.g., Kim Jong-Il abdicates and North Korea becomes the 51st state) and a timeline for getting there. (b) "Encouraged a bit of civil unrest"? Ah, because funding the mujahideen, the contras, Pinochet and any tin-pot dictator willing to fight anyone left of Jeanne Kirkpatrick has only served to instill a deep love of America and Americans in the people who came in contact with those groups. Has this ever led to the desired results? Has starting bloody civil wars in other countries ever led to kittens and happiness for us?

You aren't kiddin'. You can be the sort of shmuck who jets from one environmental riot to another and never be troubled by the hypocrisy.

Ah, the "limousine liberal" defense. In short, "I bet you're wealthy, so I don't have to listen to you".

Or the sort who decries the fascist government, loudly, publicly, repeatedly and without the slightest concern that they'll end up where people who loudly, publicly and repeatedly criticize a fascist government traditionally end up.

It's a bit of a catch-22, isn't it? If you can hear the criticism, then there's no rising tide of fascism. If you can't hear the critics, then there's no rising tide of fascism.

Re:Breaking News

[TheGeneration]

"The top 10% of earners pay 70% of the taxes. If that isn't "sharing the wealth," then socialism is much nastier than I thought."

Fascinating, that 10% you're talking about also earns 95% of the countries wealth in a year! Meanwhile the 90% that earns 5% of the country's wealth each year is paying 30% of the taxes! Wow, what a burden that must be for the bottom 90%, paying 6 times the rate the top 10% does.