Back in 1969 Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, in 1977 Elvis definitely left the building and twenty years later, along with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, Princess Diana was killed in a terrible traffic accident in Paris. I really don’t have much time for conspiracy theories and there supporters. While some of them might at first seem interesting, on closer inspection they all appear to be short on physical evidence and long on innuendo. If they contained more of the former and less of the latter, then we wouldn’t call them ‘Conspiracy Theories’ at all, we’d simply refer to them as ‘History’.
So, when the activist group ‘Anonymous’ claimed that they’d prevented Republican operative Karl Rove from stealing the US Presidential Election away from Barack Obama, why hadn’t I just turned the page and moved on?
On the evening of November 6th 2012, thanks to the BBC’s live streaming of their ‘Election Special‘, I’d watched the election results rolling in. As the state of Ohio had ‘Declared’ in favour of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney’s race to the Whitehouse had effectively ended. Although not all of the votes had been counted, nor all of the States declared, mathematically speaking Obama had secured a second term in office.
Switching to ‘Fox News’ I’d chuckled at Karl Rove’s reaction to the disappointing news from Ohio. His Titanic had sunk, but instead of reaching for his life vest, he remained steadfast in trying to convince his fellow passengers that it was an unsinkable ship. As the icy waters had lapped around his ample waist, Rove had insisted that the Ohio result had been declared prematurely. There was still a chance, a strong chance, a very strong chance that the Republican Party would still win the election.
Every news network in America had declared the 2012 US Presidential Election in favour of Barack Obama, but Karl Rove held his ground, argued his point, and waited. Did Karl Rove know something that others simply didn’t?
Back in the 2004 Presidential Election, George W Bush v John Kerry, at 11:13pm, with most of the votes counted and exit polls suggesting a clear victory for John Kerry, the Ohio electoral computer system had crashed. The fail-safe system had taken over as planned, a system based in Tennessee and operated by SMARTech. The SMARTech arrangement had been engineered by Mike Connolly, the head of GovTech and Karl Roves’ personal technology guru. When Ohio’s electronic reporting service had eventually come back on-line, the results had unexpectedly flipped in favour of George W. Bush and Ohio was declared for the Republicans.
Were Karl Roves’ actions on Fox News, his refusal to accept the blindingly obvious, based on the knowledge that another miraculous turnaround was about to happen?
I have absolutely no idea if Karl Rove attempted to steal the 2004, and or 2012 US Presidential Elections for the Republican Party, but ’Anonymous’ suggest that he did. Anonymous claim that within the Ohio electronic voting system, they found tunnels through which Karl Rove’s "worker bees" could enter and change the results of the vote. They claim to have secretly developed and installed a new firewall within the Ohio system, “The Great Oz”, a device that they claim ultimately kept those worker bees out of the system. They claim to have evidence, evidence that will lead directly back to Karl Rove and by default, to Mitt Romney himself.
If this is true, and Anonymous are indeed working for the greater good of the people, then surely this evidence must be released. "Anonymous" claim to have prevented something happening, but as it clearly didn’t happen, then without and physical evidence to the contrary, we must logically conclude that it was never going to happen in the first place.
As for the 2004 election, Mike Connolly of GovTech did provide written details concerning his involvement to US Authorities, right before he died in what is described as a “mysterious air crash“. Sadly, that evidence appears to remain ’Sealed’ as lawyers argue over its ownership. The people would argue that such evidence belonged with ’The People’, but it appears that the new owners of GovTech believe that it's their property alone and wish for it to remain sealed.
Perhaps the thought of a Presidential candidate, or in George W Bush’s case a President, committing what amounts to treason is too far fetched to believe. I can almost hear John Grisham sharpening his quill, but there are certain historical precedents for such wayward actions. Thanks to the freedom of information, certain ‘Conspiracy Theories’ have in fact now been written into ‘History’.
Back in 1968, Republican Presidential candidate Richard M Nixon derailed the Vietnam peace agreement brokered by Lyndon B. Johnson in order to better his electoral chances. His actions surely cost countless thousands of lives; American, Vietnamese and Laotian, but did assist in his election as President.
As Ronald Regan approached the Presidential Election in 1980, his advisers met with Iranian representatives in Paris and negotiated the delayed release of US hostages until after the election. Regan's actions were planned to further undermine the credibility of incumbent President Jimmy Carter, and it certainly helped as Regan won a landslide victory, but the price of their cooperation was the delivery of weapons, lots of weapons, all directed through Israel, a debacle that later became famous as the ‘Iran-Contra Affair‘.
Hopefully, one way or another, the Karl Rove election story will one day be proven and committed to ‘History‘ .... or disproved and forgotten.
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