Why you should care about the death of Mike Connell

This legitimately scares me. I heard about this guy on Democracy Now about a month or so ago in a story about possible vote fraud in Ohio during the 2000 and 2004 presidential election. At the time, ironically the eve of this year's elections, Amy Goodman reported that Mike Connell was testifying in Ohio about the possible fraud in previous elections. He had been named by a conservative Republican McCain supporter, Stephen Spoonamore, as the architect of an electronic plan to subvert the presidential election. It seems that Connell had been subpoenaed and refused to testify, with some reports claiming that Karl Rove had directly threatened Connell's wife with federal prosecution by the Justice Department if Connell testified.

To be honest I didn't pay much attention when I first heard this news. But when I read today that he died in a plane accident, it just seemed a little too convenient. Who was this guy?

Mike Connell was a media consultant who operated websites for President Bush and the chief architect of GeorgeWBush.com and GWB43.com -- the primary email account used by Karl Rove during his tenure as Senior White House Advisor. He died in a plane crash on Friday the 19th of December.

According to Spoonamore, a computer security expert who worked for the government and large companies figuring out how people steal money...or votes. In any case, he described a process called “Man in the Middle” that Connell allegedly constructed. This happened in Ohio in 2004. I'd write it in my own words but what's the point when Amy already did it on this show and there is already a website that includes the docs in the lawsuit, specifically Spoonamore's affidavit:

It involves shunting the data that comes from the website for the Secretary of State—I mean, the election returns—taking those election returns as they come to the website in real-time and shunting them to a computer somewhere else. What happened in 2004 was the election returns from Ken Blackwell’s website were shunted to a computer in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee, under the control of a very partisan private company to which Connell was connected. The data was shunted to this strange computer in Chattanooga and then directed back to the Secretary of State’s website. As Connell—I mean, sorry, as Spoonamore has said, the only purpose of doing this Man in the Middle thing is to commit crime.

In any case, as Connell is now dead, Spoonamore's allegations are simply allegations. Plus, as Rebecca Abrahams points out here the family is not suggesting that any foul play is involved. One is left to wonder whether the suit will go on, which is perhaps more important than whether foul play was involved. Although I have to say that I am happy that he didn't have polonium poisioning, the guy did ask for protective custody. Don't you have to wonder what's up here?

If you want to read, hear or know more, take a look at Democracy Now for December 22nd or in general the BradBlog.