The takeaway message is this:

The State of Ohio's real-time, streaming election results are first diverted through Chattanooga, TN, to a GOP-only web firm and the servers currently hosting georgewbush.com, as well as other key Republican web sites.

Since early this decade, top Internet "gurus" in Ohio have been coordinating web services with their GOP counterparts in Chattanooga, wiring up a major hub that in 2004, first served as a conduit for Ohio's live election night results. And presumably, if Ken Blackwell miraculously defies his dismal poll numbers, this OH-TN collaboration will continue to push the technology envelope for the new Governor of Ohio, given his well-documented "pay-to-play," win at all cost policies.

Ohio's election results were delivered to Americans at Internet speed in 2004, reflecting Ken Blackwell's deliberate contrast to Florida's chaos of four years earlier. The Secretary of State had met the enemy of timely results when in Florida where he was sent to join Ohio's special team helping the Bush effort. A variety of chad deformations left voters' intent uncertain and started the weeks-long debacle that deepened with partisan challenges in often unprecedented legal terrain.

Blackwell decided that Ohio would have none of this if he could help it. Two weeks before Florida's election decision was made final, on December 1, 2000, the first step of his plan to reduce or eliminate uncertainty of Ohio's election process was announced: Ohio would explore replacing punchcards with electronic balloting . Following his return home, SOS Blackwell put into motion other measures that ranged from legislation of legal procedure to creating technology that would deliver Ohio's voting returns in realtime to the voter's desktop.

Ken Blackwell's successful effort proved itself in the wee hours of November 3, 2004, when John Kerry felt no recourse but to concede defeat.

The Winter 2005 issue of Blackwell's internal publication, The Spirit of Citizenship and Democracy, recapped Ohio's successful election. Self-congratulations were in order for the man who bore the double burden of Secretary of State and Bush-Cheney committee co-chair through that long year:

The electoral system in Ohio worked well on November 2. Every eligible voter who wanted to vote had the opportunity to vote. There was no widespread fraud, and there was no disenfranchisement. A half million more Ohioans voted than ever before with fewer errors than four years ago, a sure sign of success by any measure.

Despite the more than 30 separate lawsuits, hordes of special-interest group "swat teams" descending on polling places, and a circus of Michael Moore-inspired camera crews, our bipartisan election system — and the order, integrity and transparency integral to it — prevailed...

As predicted, all eyes were on Ohio by late evening and into the early morning hours of November 3rd as our state played the determining role in the presidential race labeled ?too-close-to-call? before Election Day by statisticians and pundits alike....

We took out the guesswork that plagued Florida's administration of the 2000 election by implementing clear standards, policies and procedures.

According to Blackwell, the Election Night website first rolled out in 2003 (eg., archive.org cache). But it was the 2004 Presidential election that put Ohio in the position of swinging 20 electoral votes during a tight race so that everyone knew Ohio would be examined through a microscope using Florida.2000 as a lens. The SOS retained service providers who could develop, host, test, and manage the systems able to handle at least 29 million visitors to election.sos.state.oh.us on Election Night 2004.

The content of the site was just as important as traffic capacity. The main drawing card — live returns — were pulled straight from the Secretary of State’s election-returns database.

Remarkably, The Spirit only seems to have referred generically and once to involvement of outside firms in the 12 page review of Ohio's Election. There was no mention of Diebold in context of the Election Night Project. On the other hand, Alan Dillman (of Government Consulting Resources, Ltd. and evangelist Cedarville University) spoke at length as a consultant of the project mentioning Blackwell's frequent, prominent use of its realtime data to establish authoritative results for television audiences. Interestingly, Dillman conflated timeliness with the accuracy of Ohio's returns.

Mr. Blackwell took center stage many times that evening on major news networks, and each time he was able to report the most current and accurate results of the Ohio election," explained Dillman. "Mr. Blackwell`s goal of a fair, honest, and accurate vote in Ohio was achieved through, arguably, his management of the best-run election in U.S. history, and thanks, in part, to the efforts of the faculty, staff, and students of Cedarville University.

SOS Blackwell also neglected to inform that he outsourced Election Night hosting services to the provider of Internet operations for the Republican National Committee, SMARTech Corp. It's clear that most of the IP address space allocated to Smartechcorp, if it has a domain name, is operated by the RNC or its functionaries and allies.

Is there significance to the fact that election.sos.state.oh.us, on Tuesday night, will correspond to the IP address that lies between Karl Rove's Votervault.com and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC)? Just one arrangement of odd bedfellows in that example click the link to IP Block 64.203.98.xxx for other familiar examples such as Becki Donatelli-client, VetsForFreedom.com, or Ken Mehlman's 72hour.org.. They're all hot items right now with each aimed capture the reader's vote.

Attempting to surf to http://election.sos.state.oh.us will redirect the visitor to http://www.sos.state.oh.us. Following Election Results links leads to http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/ElectionsVoter/results2006.aspx (not the Election Night Dashboard at time of writing). On Tuesday, Nov. 7, databases of name servers should be refreshed to enable websurfers to clicking 'election.sos.state.oh.us' to arrive at http://64.203.98.137//Results/Dashboard.aspx.

[UPDATE - They might have *fixed* the website, but don't worry guys, Google has a copy - http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3A64.203.98.137... Ken, it's harder to make stuff disappear on the internets, not as easy as disappearing $10,000 Diebold lobbyist checks...]

Ken Blackwell outsourced the design of the Election Night Project to Mike Connell who is a GOP operative and the principal of New Media Communications and GovTech Solutions. Their association may go back as far as the George H. W. Bush era. Connell's long-established association in the online political, campaign and fundraising arenas, in addition to his technological expertise, made him a shoe-in for government and non-government services where pay-to-play is the standard..

On April 7, 2000, Blackwell certified the woman-owned (Connell's wife, Heather), small business that Mike Connell spunoff of New Media Communications in order to provide government contracting service a 'non-partisan' face. When Blackwell stamped 'approval' on that incorporation, he'd previously approved the merger of DCI Group and NewMedia Communications.

Yes, that is the same DCI Group that later employed New Hampshire phone-jammer, James Tobin. So, including silent GovTech Solutions partner, Tom Synhorst, was as partisan a ploy as had Mike been partner rather than registered agent..

Why does all of this matter?

Consider Ken Blackwell as Governor, and choosing consultants for Ohio's elections:

Plain Dealer, October 24, 2004, NATIONAL; Pg. A1, "Ohio's man at the center of the national election storm"

Blackwell blames the sharp distinction made in America between church and state on a false interpretation of the Constitution, and pushes God-centered government regularly in his public speeches. He opposes abortion and gay marriage and sides with those who believe taxes are too high and government too big.

On Blackwell’s watch, the secretary of state’s office opened the Ohio Center for Civic Character, which elicits pledges of moral character from candidates for public office.

“He’s adored by the strong conservative, the right-wing faction of the party,” Bennett said. “There is no question that he is.”

Bob Rohm, vice president of Christian Ministries at Cedarville University, asked students to pray for Blackwell in the face of the personal attacks he faces this election season. He said he believes Blackwell “doesn’t plug his faith in, then unplug it, like some politicians.”

“I have reason to believe Ken is going to do everything right, period,” he said. “He’s a man of strong faith and personal conviction.

. . .

GRAPHIC: MIKE ELICSON SPECIAL TO THE PLAIN DEALER In a speech last week laced with biblical references, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell implored students at Cedarville University to bring God back into American democracy. A flier distributed in Columbus by some Democrats in the state Senate compares Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell to former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and warns that Blackwell could make a mess out of the Nov. 2 presidential election.

Will pay-to-play cronyism enter the Governor's mansion?

Blackwell defends campaign donations, Sunday, April 16, 2006

"That's the way business is done in Columbus. Want a contract? Write a check," Redfern said.

Blackwell's opponent in the May 2 primary, Attorney General Jim Petro, has pledged that if elected, his first initiative would be to "end political favoritism" by calling for a ban on awarding state contracts to political contributors.

Blackwell doesn't support Petro's proposal. Blackwell said he wants to make campaign contributions and government contracts more transparent through online databases. He said that would let the public "follow the dollars and make determinations about whether or not there are misdoings."

New Media Communications and its spin-off, Govtech Solutions, have received about $465,000 from the secretary of state's office, and New Media received $30,335 for its work on the Blackwell campaign.

It seems that Ken Blackwell would make his campaign contributions information as transparent as the relationships he has with the people who'd be putting those transaction databases online.

Who might that be? Mike Connell, of NewMedia Communications, is one good bet.

Of recognition for his company's Innovation Mike Connell writes,

Every candidate/client New Media served emerged from the 2004 election victorious. Among them were Bush-Cheney '04, Senators John Thune, David Vitter and George Voinovich, seven congressional candidates and a number of state ballot initiatives. Innovative campaign strategies and solid program execution clearly impacted these outcomes.

New Media created the first interactive political ad for the Bush 2000 campaign. The ad was unveiled on the candidate’s website – a technique that was quickly copied by other candidates. By 2004, interactive web videos became a common component in all presidential campaigns.

Connell's executive summary of Who We Are defines NewMedia's Our People in crystal-clear political terms:

He continues to be a driving force for his clients and for the industry -- bringing emerging technologies and fresh ideas into the political arena, through every campaign cycle.

In the realm of campaign politics, Connell has provided Internet strategy to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns of 2000 and 2004. He has served as Internet consultant to scores of prominent senators, governors and Members of Congress, as well as the Republican National Committee and four Republican National Conventions.

New Media’s client list reads like a "Who's Who" of Republican politics

So, the Internet strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004 Campaign was simultaneously paid by Ohio's Secretary of State, who was also Bush-Cheney 2004 Campaign co-chairman, in order to ensure that the Ohio Election Night Dashboard serving (realtime winner/loser results to Ohio voters) from IP space under the control of Bush-Cheney 2004 would be operating in time to assure the opposing candidate had no idea other than to concede? And this machinery was geared up for this year's primary?!

It's been live this week, are Ohio voters ready?

If it was not a careful consideration he made, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell certainly should have thought again before plugging the Bush-Cheney Internet strategist directly into Ohio's election-results database to code and program the realtime reporting system used to establish John Kerry's loss in 2004.

If it had been carefully considered, perhaps the voters of Ohio should question J. Kenneth Blackwell's potential judgement as Governor. After all, it's not even by Nov. 7, 2006, that Ken Blackwell cared to inform the electorate that he's running their electrons around the Internet before delivering the Results to their home.

Chattanooga anyone?