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Carolab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-28-05 08:30 PM
Original message
Is election reform bad for your health?
Edited on Fri Oct-28-05 08:40 PM by Carolab
A number of relatively high profile people involved in election reform and with e-voting companies seem to have been very unlucky.

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1. Dan Rocco -- April 1, 2002 -- ChoicePoint VP -- plane crash

He died on April 1, 2002, in a plane crash in Gainesville, Georgia. He was an executive vice president at ChoicePoint, the firm that gained infamy with their faulty "felons" list supplied to Katherine Harris during the 2000 election in Florida. As a result of this list, over 90,000 voters (mostly African-American voters) were wrongly identified as felons and purged from the rolls.
http://www.bk2k.com/bushbodycount/stolen-election/bodies.shtml


2. Wesley Vance -- April 26, 2003 -- Diebold VP -- plane crash

Pilot Killed In Plane Crash Was Top Exec At Diebold

April 28, 2003 10:50AM
http://www.wkbn.com/Global/story.asp?S=1253108
(Jackson-AP) -- The pilot of a single-engine airplane that crashed in southern Ohio over the weekend was the chief operating officer of Canton-based Diebold Incorporated.
The company says 45-year-old Wesley Vance of Canton was flying a private plane that crashed Saturday near the Jackson County Airport. ...The company says Vance joined Diebold in October, 2000, as president of its North America business unit. He was named chief operating officer in 2001. Chief Executive Walden O'Dell will assume the company's daily operational responsibilities until a successor is found for Vance. An airport spokesman says Vance was practicing takeoffs and landings in a six-seat Beachcraft A-36 when it crashed near the airport.


~~~
http://www.abqjournal.com/obits/profiles/vance05-02-03.htm
Vance was an Eagle Scout, elected to Boys State, and a church-going Mormon, married, father of five. He earned a degree from Brigham Young University. He was described as a confident person who people liked to be around. His senior class in high school voted him "favorite boy". He had been a pilot for over twenty years. He was named to Diebold's No. 2 position as COO in 2001, managing the company's global operations.


3. Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr. -- July 4, 2003 -- Diebold consultant -- cause of death not confirmed

Anthony Celebrezze Dies

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1057397985113640.xml
07/05/03

Former Ohio Attorney General Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr., 61, died yesterday in an Urbana hospital. Champaign County Coroner Joshua Richards confirmed that Celebrezze died about 9 p.m. yesterday, but would not confirm a cause of death.

Celebrezze, a Democrat of Columbus, was a stalwart in Cleveland and Ohio politics.... He was 38 when he was elected secretary of state in 1978.

He was Ohio attorney general from 1983 to 1991, and Ohio secretary of state from 1979 to 1983. Celebrezze ran against George Voinovich for governor in 1990 but lost.

Wayne Hill, Celebrezze's longtime communications director during the 1978 campaign for secretary of state and then attorney general, was in shock at Celebrezze's death yesterday.

Hill said Celebrezze, who enjoyed racing cars, was at Shady Bowl Speedway in De Graff for a Fourth of July race when he felt ill. De Graff is west of Columbus.

"It's beyond a shock. Tony had a passion for racing," said Hill in a telephone interview. "It's unbelievable. It's not right."

...After his loss to Voinovich, Celebrezze joined the law firm of Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter, and recently was a consultant for Diebold Inc., promoting electronic voting machines.


4. Athan Gibbs, Jr. -- March 12, 2004 -- invented the TruVote system -- car crash - collided w/ 18-wheeler
Was planning to present his new voting machine, and its paper verification features, to the Georgia legislature within a week of the crash.

"Death of a Patriot: No More 'Blind Faith Voting,'" by Bob Fitrakis http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-02.htm
"Black Voting Machine Inventor Dies," by Hazel Trice Edney, The Call,
March 26, 2004 http://www.kccall.com/News/2004/0326/Community/081.html


5. Andy Stephenson -- July 7, 2005 -- nationally known election activist -- pancreatic cancer

Andy had worked for Black Box Voting and barnstormed around the country investigating and speaking. It was Andy who uncovered (among other things) much of the story of Jeffrey Dean, the VP at Diebold who did software programming, who was a convicted felon whose crime had been embezzlement using computers. He went to many of the nation's election hotspots, including Florida and Ohio.

In January 2005, Andy noticed he didn't feel well. In April, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was eventually treated at Johns Hopkins, after the national election community raised $50,000 in eleven days for his treatment. He died of post-surgery complications and a series of strokes. He was 43. His surgery had been postponed for two weeks due to the efforts of people who tried to monkeywrench Paypal and Johns Hopkins, and who spread nasty rumors that Andy wasn't really sick, and that this was all a scam. Someone managed to shut down his Medicaid after the surgery, once again slowing things down. One of his supporters in Baltimore had her car vandalized.

He had said a year earlier: "I've been threatened by these people . I've been followed from my home to work. The president of Diebold told me to back off or I would get a visit. My phone's been tapped. I've been ridiculed. I've been called a conspiracy theorist. You bet I'm going to demonize them. It's wrong. We're privatizing our elections. It's something that should remain in the hands of the people...We need to take it back. It's We the People." "If they take our right to vote away, we're nothing but slaves. I'm sorry. I'm not willing to be a slave. I'm not willing to go quietly into the night." --Andy Stephenson, July 13, 2004 in an interview following a press conference next to the Austin State Capitol Rotunda.


6. Rev. Bill Moss -- August 2, 2005 -- lead plaintiff in Moss v. Bush -- stroke

Columbus, Ohio resident Bill Moss was highly visible in the efforts to rectify the many wrongs of the November 2004 in Ohio. Elected five times to the Columbus Board of Education, Rev. Moss was an eloquent speaker. He was considered a possible national spokesperson for the election reform movement, in an informal meeting held in Houston on June 30, 2005 after the Election Assessment Hearing. Like Athan Gibbs, Moss was African-American.


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Land Shark Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-28-05 08:38 PM
Response to Original message
1. Marx is dead, Lenin is dead, LandShark ain't been feeling too well either
But all of the activists mentioned above in Carolab's post live on in memory.

BTW here's a nice piece on Andy Stephenson. I thought it had some relevant thoughts about courage, what is or isn't "hypocrisy", and the nature of the attacks Andy suffered.
<http://washblog.typepad.com/main/2005/07/election_hero_a.html>
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acmejack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-28-05 08:46 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. Thanks for the link!
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Land Shark Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-28-05 09:37 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Kein probleme (almost my only German)
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 12:02 PM
Response to Reply #4
12. Sending you these protections rays from YoMoma. n/t
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Quakerfriend Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-28-05 08:39 PM
Response to Original message
2. Very scary stuff!
Thx for posting this. Keeps us straight re: the criminality that confronts us.
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Time for change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-28-05 10:38 PM
Response to Original message
5. Don't forget Raymond Lemming
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Carolab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-28-05 10:46 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Oh, yeah, that's right.
Also, Clint Curtis' dog. (Not to lump them together, you understand, but it was a clear threat to Clint.)
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Time for change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 10:41 AM
Response to Reply #6
9. And would it be a stretch to include Paul Wellstone?
He died more than two years prior to the 2004 election, but I'll bet that if it hadn't been for the helicopter "accident", he would have been the most likely person to lead an investigation into the 2004 election. And after all, his "accident" was election related.
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Stinky The Clown Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 11:27 AM
Response to Reply #9
11. Actually, it was a small plane, not a helicopter ......
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Febble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 10:31 AM
Response to Reply #5
7. Wasn't his name Lemme?
Edited on Sat Oct-29-05 10:52 AM by Febble
I think "lemming" might be a Freudian slip.

On edit:


FWIW here are some alleged documents concerning his death from Insider Magazine:

http://www.insider-magazine.com/unrestricted_warfare.htm

If it was murder, it's not clear that it was necessarily to do with the Curtis Feeney stuff. Yang Enterprises doesn't sound like a very healthy workplace for all sorts of reasons.

How sound are Insider Magazine's investigations?
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Time for change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 10:38 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. Well, it was some kind of slip all right.
Except lemmings really do commit suicide, right?
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Febble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 10:56 AM
Response to Reply #8
10. Probably not
but so the mythology goes.

But if my husband apparently committed suicide while investigating a Chinese software firm allegedly employing illegal aliens I'd certainly be suspicious.

Question would be whether it had anything to do with Curtis or Feeney.
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Time for change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 12:19 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. I guess I don't understand the question
Raymond Lemme was investigating Curtis' claims that the Republican Party, and Feeney in particular, were trying to figure out how to steal the election electronically -- which I'm sure you are aware of.

Lemme told Curtis shorty before he died that he had tracked the corruption "all the way to the top".

So, if you would have suspicions about Lemme's death, why would they not involve Curtis or Feeney? I guess I don't understand what your point is.
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Febble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 01:04 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. Well, you know me....
I like to keep an open mind.

I'm just saying it sounds as though he was investigating a number of things. If somebody he was investigating wanted him murdered, it could have been someone connected with Tom Feeney, or could have been Chinese gangmasters.

Or the investigation into his death could have been covered up in case it implicated Feeney et al, even if the murder was done because of his other investigations. Or even if it really was suicide.

But I really don't like the sound of it. I'm just saying that if he was murdered, it needn't have been because of the Curtis story. But also it could have been.

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Land Shark Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. Just so long as one mind is not SO open, one's brain falls out...
you know, intuition is a major part of good science (how else does an excellent hypothesis result?)

Not necessarily speaking straight to Febs here, just riffing on "keep an open mind"
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Febble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 02:17 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. LOL
No, I'm keeping my brain well tethered.

And I completely agree about intuition. Remember, my training is in the arts.
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Time for change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 03:10 PM
Response to Reply #14
17. Well sure, Lemme's murder could have been for any reason
It could have been Chinese gangmasters.

And Sherole Eaton could have been fired for incompetence.

And the Warren County lockdown with the phony national security alert could have been based on the desire of the 8 people involved to have a sex orgy rather than anything election related.

And every one of Blackwell's decisions regarding the 2004 election and it's apparent cover-up could be based on a conscientious effort to accomplish his sworn duty to uphold Ohio election laws rather than on partisanship.

All these things are possible, I admit. But we're trying to deal with what seems likely, rather than remote possibilities, right? So why mention Chinese gangmasters?
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glitch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 04:09 PM
Response to Reply #17
18. Probablity - not everyone can wrap their heads around the concept. nt
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Febble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 04:54 PM
Response to Reply #18
20. Look, I posted
the damn link.

I can get my head round the concept that Lemme may have been murdered because of his link with Feeney and Curtis. All I am saying is that he was investigating more than one piece of illegal business going on at Yang.

Enough with the snark.
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Time for change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 10:42 PM
Response to Reply #20
22. Sorry about the misunderstanding
I hadn't looked at the link, and the idea just kind of sounded preposterous to me -- I don't know why. Guess that's what happens when I have too many things on my mind.
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Febble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-30-05 02:46 AM
Response to Reply #22
24. Don't worry!
Sorry, I got cross with the poster who seemed to imply I couldn't get my head around the probability that Lemme was murdered because of the Curtis business.

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Febble Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 04:52 PM
Response to Reply #17
19. Because apparently
he was also investigating illegal aliens working for the company.

That's why I mention it. If a company is up to no good, and an investigator investigates it, and is murdered, then the field of suspects may be rather wide.

The Blackwell case is rather different. He had a clear conflict of interest. He had no business being the SoS if he wanted to run for Republican governor.

But I agree with you about Lemme - it's a nasty story and deserves investigation - for those who dare. That's why I posted the link. All I was saying, was that more than one nefarious no-gooder may have had a motive for doing away with him.

Maybe I read too many Agatha Christies.
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Time for change Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Oct-29-05 07:16 PM
Response to Reply #19
21. Ok, I get it. I thought you were just pulling that Chinese gangster thing
out of thin air, and that was confusing me.

Still, I think that the Bush cartel has a lot more power (and motive) than anybody else who may have wished to harm him.
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kster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-30-05 02:38 AM
Response to Reply #19
23. I dare..nt
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