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/

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). https://t.co/dwWaTvL8aF
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. https://t.co/SwUPeRnGtf
Discussion of Ohio 2004. 5/ https://t.co/PQ50iq5Dv0
Ohio’s Secretary of State that year, Ken Blackwell, was also a co-chair of Bush’s reelection campaign in Ohio. 6/ https://t.co/YGEhK65yxG
Ken Blackwell had also tried unsuccessfully to ban exit polls in Ohio in 2004. 7/ https://t.co/C7MXKm2H5K
Ken Blackwell is a fundamentalist Christian who opposes same sex marriage and abortion even in the case of rape or incest. 8/ https://t.co/xM8nil6vuQ
This discusses Blackwell’s position on abortion. 9/ https://t.co/pt1Tydenlq
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/ https://t.co/RlyZtCaKCh
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 https://t.co/GWjBjEznYS
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/ https://t.co/vvzcGIS284
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/ https://t.co/4lYuSXS3DN
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://t.co/YWua0MsAf8
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/ https://t.co/arKBv6Tgom
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/ https://t.co/an5EU7ctlO
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. Again, Ken Blackwell chairs this group. 26/
Exit polls favoring Biden, not Trump. via @tdmsresearch 27/ https://t.co/rZFnvO1XuE
The greatest disparities [between exit polls and official results in 04] were concentrated in battleground states—particularly Ohio.” 28/

Quote from Harper’s article: https://t.co/WBkz0Kla5I
Article about DeVine working with Manafort to help the pro-Russia Yanukovych (discussed in post 1). 29/ https://t.co/xvGaE7RfWY
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/ https://t.co/U2LR85AE0n
“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/

More from Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢

IMO, the #SAFEAct is better on election security than HR1 bc it wld ban most touchscreen voting machines currently available. HR1 wld allow them as a primary in person system bc vendors call the paper they spit out a “paper ballot.” Pen & paper is safer #HandMarkedPaperBallots 1/


I have not looked at other aspects of HR1. It addresses more than election security. The #SAFEAct shld be the starting point for election security reform in my opinion. 2/

HR1 requires that all voters have the option to mark their ballots by hand. But it does not specify that, for jurisdictions with in person voting, the hand marked (pen & paper) option must be available for in person voting (vs it only being an option w/ vote by mail). 3/

HR1 may still be a good start. But it does not go nearly far enough on election security. Here are my suggestions for election security. Maybe these could be addressed in a later bill, but we shld keep them on our radar. 4/ https://t.co/mNdHrvwHcN


The key section is 1502. IMO, it shld add the following. “For jurisdictions that offer in person voting, the option to mark a paper ballot by hand must be offered at the in-person polling location; giving this option only for vote by mail won’t suffice for such jurisdictions.” 5/

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