The Council for National Policy (to which Kellyanne, Bannon, the DeVos family, the Mercers, Pence, Ken Blackwell, and two men whose families funded the largest voting machine vendor in the U.S.) has set a deadline of 2020 for restoring “religion and economic freedom and Judeo-Christian values” under the Constitution. Jennifer Cohn Follow Dec 28, 2017 · 23 min read

By Jennifer S. Cohn

December 27, 2017

Citations updated July 20, 2018

If you don’t yet know about the Council for National Policy (“CNP”) you should read this Thread. It will help you understand what’s happening to our country. “The Council for National Policy (CNP), is an umbrella organization and networking group for social [anti-abortion, anti-gay] conservative activists in the United States. … Nation magazine has called it a secretive organization that ‘networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.’” http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/council-for-national-policy/

3. The New York Times has called the CNP “a little known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country…” http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/28/us/2004-campaign-conservatives-club-most-powerful-gathers-strictest-privacy.html

4. In 1981, the CNP’s first executive director told Newsweek that “One day before the end of this century, the Council will be so influential that no president, regardless of party of philosophy, will be able to ignore us or our concerns or shut us out of the highest levels of government.” via @ReaderAdrift

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dominionists-gain-control-of-trump-campaign_us_57c817d0e4b06c750dd8d25a

5. In recent years, the CNP has kept its member lists confidential. But the Southern Poverty Law Center obtained and published one from 2014. Here is a link to the directory. https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/cnp_redacted_final.pdf …

6. KellyAnne appears in the 2014 directory, which says that her interests include “campaign election technology.”

Note that KellyAnne was also a consultant to the now infamous Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm that helped elect Donald Trump using stolen Facebook data.

7. Bannon — the former VP of Cambridge Analytica and former Trump advisor — is in the CNP directory as well.

8. So is Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association.

9. The 2014 directory shows that the Hon. Rich DeVos has been president of the CNP two times.

10. Pence recently confirmed that he too is in the CNP. https://medium.com/@archiestrauss/pence-constituents-never-forget-governor-a-continuing-compendium-a2d1cdc94d8b …

11. The New Yorker says the Mercers — who were majority owners of Cambridge Analytica — are also in the CNP.

12. The 2014 directory does not include the Koch Brothers. But according to the Huffington Post, the “the Kochs’ father, Fred Koch, had been a fundamentalist Christian co-founder of the John Birch Society, whose spin-off in 1981, which was/is the highly secretive fundamentalist Christian theocratic-aristocratic Council for National Policy, awarded his son Charles Koch their “Free Enterprise Award” in 1999.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/how-the-koch-brothers-did_1_b_4143928.html

13. So far, no U.S. President appears to have been a member of the CNP.

14. But “[i]n 1999, candidate George W. Bush spoke before a closed-press CNP session in San Antonio.” http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121170&page=1

15. And Bush’s chief political advisor, Karl Rove, made a point of courting one of the CNP’s founders, Paul Weyrich, as early as 2001 (perhaps even earlier).

http://savannahnow.com/stories/081201/LOCroveap.shtml …

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/us/conservatives-savor-their-role-as-insiders-at-the-white-house.html?mcubz=1 … [

16. The CNP’s 2014 vision statement lays out its goal: “A united conservative movement to assure, by 2020, policy leadership and governance that restores religious and economic freedom, a strong national defense, and Judeo-Christian values under the Constitution.”

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/05/17/council-national-policy-behind-curtain … …

17. The CNP was founded in 1981 by “at least five fathers,” including “Christian activist Paul Weyrich,” billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt, the Rev. Tim LaHaye (then head of the Moral Majority), “businessman and one-time murder suspect T. Cullen Davis,” and “wealthy John Bircher William Cies.” http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121170&page=1 …

18. Weyrich (now deceased) co-founded several other Religious Right organizations as well, including:

The Moral Majority (with the Reverend Jerry Falwell),

(with the Reverend Jerry Falwell), The Heritage Foundation ,

, The Free Congress Foundation, and

and ALEC.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-weyrich19-2008dec19-story.html [Weyrich founded the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, and the Free Congress Foundation]

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/05/17/council-national-policy-behind-curtain … [CNP founder Weyrich co-founded ALEC]

19. Weyrich coined the term “Moral Majority” and is considered by many to be the “Father of the Modern Conservative Movement.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/18/AR2008121801771.html

20. Here is an infamous 1980 video of Paul Weyrich where he says “I don’t want everybody to vote.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw

21. Here is a Paul Weyrich article where he calls for a Constitutional Convention to re-write the U.S. Constitution. http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/wolves/lament.htm …

22. Here is a guerilla tactics manual from Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation, which states in part that, “We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them. *** We will maintain a constant barrage of criticism against the Left. We will attack the very legitimacy of the Left. We will not give them a moment’s rest. * * * We will use guerilla tactics to undermine the legitimacy of the dominant regime.” http://web.archive.org/web/20010713152425/http://www.freecongress.org/centers/conservatism/traditionalist.htm#3a

23. Weyrich was an early proponent of forging close ties between the GOP and Russia.

24. In 1991, Weyrich spoke at the inauguration of “Russia House, a … go-between for Russian and U.S. businesses … said to be the first of its kind….” https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/10/27/russia-house-trading-in-its-name/6acbb242-0df5-43b6-8649-9032a735851b/?utm_term=.39fd75e1aa63

25. Weyrich was also a member of the Kriegel Institute for Freedom and Democracy in Russia. In 2000, he attended the World Russia Forum, with then Senator Sessions and Senator Grassley (among others). http://thegopwatchdog.com/from-russia-with-love/

26. Weyrich “bemoaned the Bush/Cheney administration’s failure to draw closer to Russia…” http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/weyrich_paul/

27. Another prominent early member of the CNP was GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who later served time for corruption involving his lobbying work and for defrauding the former owner of a fleet of casino boats.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Jack_Abramoff:_Republican_Activism [“Abramoff … became a member of the Council for National Policy in 1984…” — Citation added 7/20/18]

http://watch-unto-prayer.org/database1.html [Citation added 7/20/18]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/WASHINGTON-LOBBYING-SCANDAL-Abramoff-cops-plea-2507288.php [discussing Abramoff guilty pleas]

28. Abramoff’s ties to Russia appear to have been even more substantial than Weyrich’s:

29. The CNP has extended its tendrils not only to Russia, but also to America’s largest voting machine vendors.

30. As of 2010, the two largest voting machine vendors in the United States were Election Systems & Software (ES&S) & Diebold Election Systems (later renamed Premier Election Systems).

https://www.wired.com/2010/03/ess-sued-in-antitrust-cas/

31. ES&S resulted from the 1997 merger of American Information Systems and Business Records Corporation (“BRC”).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Systems_%26_Software#Electronic_Poll_Books_for_the_City_of_Chicago [“American Information Systems acquired the Election Services Division of Business Records Corporation and was reincorporated as Election Systems & Software, Inc. in December 1997. .. As a result of this merger, ES&S becamse the largest voting system vendor in the United States.”]

32. BRC, in turn, was started with money from Weyrich’s CNP co-founder, Nelson Bunker Hunt. http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/whose-water/whose-voting-machines

33. The family of Howard Ahmanson, another early and prominent CNP member, also played a “key role” in financing voting machine vendor ES&S.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/12/nation-under-god/ … [“[T]wo heavy contributors to the Chalcedon Foundation-Reconstruction’s main think tank-are Howard Ahmanson and Nelson Bunker Hunt, both of whose families played key roles in financing electronic voting machine manufacturer Election Systems & Software.”]

https://www.wired.com/2004/03/how-e-voting-threatens-democracy/ [“Howard Ahmanson Jr. … bankrolled the founders of ES&S…” — Citation added 7/20/18]

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Howard-F.-Ahmanson,-Jr — [“Ahmanson … was a member of the Council for National Policy in 1984–85, 1988….” — Citation added 7/20/18]

www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Howard_Ahmanson,_Jr. [“Ahmanson … was a member of the Council for National Policy in 1984–85, 1988 and sat on its Board of Governors in 1996 and 1998…” — Citation added 7/20/18]

http://watch-unto-prayer.org/database.html#ahmanson [“Howard Ahmanson, Jr. — CNP Board of Governors (1996)…” — Citation added 7/20/18]

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnp.a.htm#ahmanson [Howard Ahmanson — CNP member 1984–85, 1988, 1996, 1998–7/20/18 UPDATE — THIS LINK HAS RECENTLY BEEN DISABLED].

34. Hunt & Ahmanson were both major contributors to the Chalcedon Foundation, Christian Reconstruction’s main think tank. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/12/nation-under-god/ … …

35. The goal of Christian Reconstruction — also known as “Dominionism” — is to transform America into a theocracy by “dismantling” our current government and replacing it with a “social order based on biblical law.” https://www.salon.com/2015/07/31/secrets_of_the_extreme_religious_right_inside_the_frightening_world_of_christian_reconstructionism/

36. Unlike ES&S, Diebold did not (as far as I know) receive early funding from the CNP or Dominionists.

37. But Diebold did pay Abramoff’s lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig, at least $275,000. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Greenberg_Traurig

38. Diebold was also closely connected to ES&S in that the president/CEO of its election division for many years (Bob Urosevich) founded ES&S (previously called DataMark and AIS) where his brother remained as a vice president.

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/premier-diebold/accuvote-tsx/ … [“Diebold acquired Global Election Systems (GES) in January 2002. GES was renamed Diebold Election Systems (DES), and Robert Urosevich, who had been President of GES, became the CEO of DES.”]

http://www.omaha.com/columnists/kelly/kelly-this-omaha-company-shaped-how-america-counts-its-election/article_459030e0-b522-5a7b-b953-1e6c958e5439.html [Bob Urosevich founded ES&S under the name “DataMark,” received “an infusion of capital from .. California billionaire William Ahmanson,” and changed the company name to “American Information Systems,” which became “ES&S in 1997 after the acquisition of [BRC].” Bob’s brother “Todd is a vice president of ES&S.”]

39. ES&S even acquired Diebold/Premier in 2009, but the DOJ forced it to divest because the combined company accounted for more than 70% of U.S. voting equipment.

40. “Dominion Voting” is the disturbing moniker of the Canadian company that acquired Diebold in 2010: after the DOJ forced ES&S to sell.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2514925/government-it/former-diebold-e-voting-unit-settles-ohio-lawsuit.html

41. Equally disturbing, Diebold got into the voting machine business with its 2002 acquisition of Global Election Systems, a company whose Senior VP (programmer Jeffrey Dean) was a convicted felon who had served time for sophisticated crimes involving “computer tampering”.

https://www.wired.com/2003/12/con-job-at-diebold-subsidiary/ [“According to a public court document released before GES hired him, Dean served time in a Washington state correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files in a scheme that ‘involved a high degree of sophistication and planning.’”];

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/feb/02/houseofcommons.society [“Stephenson also discovered that Jeffrey Dean, the senior programmer of the Diebold Gems central tabulator system counting a third of the votes in the Bush-Kerry election in 37 states, has a police record. He pleaded guilty to 23 counts of embezzlement involving sophisticated manipulation of computer accounting records.”]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/opinion/democracy-at-risk.html …

42. As reported in some (or all) of the above stories, Dean’s criminal past and relationship to Global/Diebold were discovered by election integrity advocate and “Black Box Voting” author Beverly Harris.

43. Here is a copy of the SEC filing (obtained by Harris) showing that Dean was Global’s largest shareholder in 2001.

44. Here is an excerpt from Dean’s sentencing document, also obtained by Beverly Harris.

45. Diebold told the AP that Dean left the company in 2002. http://blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-14.pdf … … …

46. But Harris obtained Dean’s court file, which included internal Diebold memos showing that Dean remained as a Diebold consultant.

47. According to Wired, Dean “wrote & maintained…code used to count hundreds of thousands of votes.” https://www.wired.com/2003/12/con-job-at-diebold-subsidiary/ … …

48. According to the Guardian, Dean also programmed the GEMS central tabulator system, which counted one third of the votes in 37 states in 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/feb/02/houseofcommons.society … … …

49. When Diebold, Inc. acquired Global, Diebold’s CEO was a member of Bush’s Rangers & Pioneers, an elite group of loyalists who … raised at least $100,000 each for the 2004 race.” that http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/business/machine-politics-in-the-digital-age.html …

50. According to the New York Times, Diebold’s executives donated exclusively to the Republican party in 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/business/machine-politics-in-the-digital-age.html …

51. Concurrent with Diebold’s acquisition of Global, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which allocated billions for states to buy new voting machines.

https://www.wired.com/2009/09/diebold-sells/ …

52. HAVA’s chief sponsor, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, received expensive bribes from Abramoff and defeated legislation that would have required voting machines to include a paper audit trail.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/19/AR2007011900162.html … [discussing bribes from Abramoff]

https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/3295 … [identifying Ney as chief sponsor of HAVA]

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3111hava_debate.html … [Letter from Ney opposing paper audit trail and using people with disabilities as a scapegoat]

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3154915 … [discussing how Ney defeated a subsequent paper audit trail bill as well]

53. At the time, Diebold’s machines were paperless, and Diebold had paid Abramoff’s firm at least $275,000 to lobby for its machines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/business/machine-politics-in-the-digital-age.html [Describing Diebold as “among the country’s biggest suppliers of paperless, touch-screen voting machines.”]

https://harpers.org/blog/2012/10/an-excerpt-from-how-to-rig-an-election/ [Diebold paid the lobbying firm of Greenberg Traurig at least $275,000]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/12/23/CU2005122300939.html [Abramoff joined Greenberg Traurig in 1991]

54. Ney later pled guilty to accepting bribes from Abramoff between 2001 and 2004.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/19/AR2007011900162.html …

55. With paperless machines, there is no way (absent a forensic audit) to know if the tallies have been rigged because there are no paper ballots that can be hand counted to compare to the electronic result.

https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba … [Article by IT expert Alex Halderman who testified to Congress about voting machine security]

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s740/sh/ecd6241d-3395-4687-a3da-775f9311a979/b398b933b17f0ccb6f37615c15bab8ce …

56. Here is an article by Adam Cohen (former member of NYT Editorial Board, former senior writer for Time magazine and a current editor of the National Book Review) explaining that “It’s impossible to know for sure” if results from paperless voting machines “accurately reflect voters’ choices..”

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/07/how_to_make_voting_easy_effici.html …

57. Back in 2004 — when Hillary was in the Senate and Ney was defeating paper audit trail bills — Hillary “told the press that without a voter-verified paper trail GOP-leaning corporations might program voting machines to help Republicans steal elections.” https://www.thenation.com/article/how-they-could-steal-election-time/

58. To this day, five states exclusively use paperless voting machines and another nine use paperless machines in at least some of their counties.

https://www.npr.org/2016/10/18/498255215/why-worries-about-paperless-voting-loom-larger-this-year

59. And the CNP has indeed benefited from a number of questionable election outcomes.

60. In January 2005, the CNP gave Tom Feeney (former Representative from Florida) the “Winston Churchill award.”

https://www.cfnp.org/page.aspx?pid=344

61. The month before the CNP gave Feeney this award, a fellow Republican and senior programmer with Yang Enterprises in Florida testified to the House Judiciary Committee (led by John Conyers) that Feeney asked him to design a vote flipping program for the 2000 election.

https://www.wired.com/2004/12/more-questions-for-florida/

62. Curtis passed a polygraph test.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Curtis … [“On March 3, 2005, Curtis passed a polygraph test given by Tim Robinson, the retired chief polygraph operator and 20-year veteran of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”]

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/is-this-man-crazy/Content?oid=2274003 [“In December 2004, Curtis testified before a panel of House Democrats investigating charges of vote tampering in Ohio. And in 2005, he took — and passed — a polygraph test to bolster his claims.”]

63. Curtis later signed a sworn affidavit repeating in detail his claims against Feeney. http://www.bradblog.com/Docs/CC_Affidavit_120604.pdf [link to affidavit]

64. A Global machine did inexplicably lose at least 16,000 Gore votes in Volusia County, Florida during the 2000 election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/us/2000-campaign-florida-vote-democrats-tell-problems-polls-across-florida.html … … [“Volusia County election results were delayed several hours by a computer disk error that subtracted 16,000 votes from Mr. Gore…Employees of a software company determined that the disk was damaged.”]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/03/diebolds-political-machine/ … … [“The first signs that the Diebold-made system in Volusia County was malfunctioning came early on election night, when the central ballot-counting computer showed a Socialist Party candidate receiving more than 9,000 votes and Vice President Al Gore getting minus 19,000. Another 4,000 votes poured into the plus column for Bush that didn’t belong there. Taken together, the massive swing seemed to indicate that Bush, not Gore, had won Florida and thus the White House.”]

65. Volusia County was within Feeney’s district.

http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=3416 … …

66. Internal Global/Diebold memos obtained by Beverly Harris acknowledged and discussed the Volusia error but did not resolve how it happened. One memo said the “problem precinct had two memory cards uploaded” (there should have been just one), and said it was “possible the second memory card came from an unauthorized source.” (Emphasis added.)

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/03/diebolds-political-machine/ … …

https://books.google.com/books?id=pY1DCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=%22The+problem+precinct+had+two+memory+cards%22&source=bl&ots=x3n5aWPQkI&sig=m9sIUawEy77ukZmgLNXxfx_lokQ&hl=en&sa=X#v=onepage&q=%22The%20problem%20precinct%20had%20two%20memory%20cards%22&f=false [Link to Global/Diebold memos re: the Volusia error, p. 180]

67. The Volusia error was discovered “only because an alert poll monitor noticed Gore’s vote count going down through the evening, which of course is impossible.”

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/03/diebolds-political-machine/#

68. You may recall that “The Florida vote was ultimately settled in Bush’s favor by a margin of 537 votes when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Bush v. Gore, stopped a recount that had been initiated upon a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court. That in turn gave Bush a majority of votes in the Electoral College and victory in the presidential election.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida

69. The 2004 election had as many (or more) irregularities .

70. At the time, Ohio’s Secretary of State was Ken Blackwell, who also co-chaired Bush’s re-election campaign in Ohio.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/03/hitchens200503 [In 2004, Blackwell was both Ohio Secretary of State and a co-chair of Bush’s reelection campaign]

71. Blackwell is currently a member of Trump’s voter suppression commission.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-commission-on-election-integrity-could-instead-restrict-voting/2017/05/12/b9d4fdde-3698-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html?utm_term=.4f04212f1695

72. The 2014 CNP directory lists Blackwell as a member. Like KellyAnne, his interests include “campaign election technology.”

73. As Secretary of State, Blackwell fought for paperless (unverifiable) voting machines http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/03/diebolds-political-machine/

http://bit.ly/2hAY1EK

74. In the 2004 election, Blackwell tried to block exit polls, but lost in court. https://www.fjc.gov/sites/default/files/2017/EE-OHS-1-04-cv-750-ABC.pdf …

75. Blackwell also hired Karl Rove’s IT guru, Mike Connell, to design a “backup server” that re-routed Ohio’s election results through a hosting company in Tennessee called “Smartech,” which also hosted a range of sites for the RNC.

.http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article24508330.html …

https://www.wired.com/2007/04/did_ohio_electi/ …

76. “Smartech was paid more than $72,000 by Bush’s 2004 campaign and has hosted hundreds of Republican Web and e-mail sites…” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article24508330.html …

77. “Connell was the Bush campaign’s chief IT strategist.” https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ … …

78. Connell was also a zealous anti-abortion activist. https://harpers.org/archive/2012/1

79. The backup server was supposed to “kick in … if the official Ohio servers were overwhelmed by Election Day traffic.” https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ …

80. “The SmarTech site [in Tennessee] went into action at 11:14 p.m. on Election Day.” https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ …

81. The transfer of Ohio’s vote count to the backup server remains a mystery because there’s no evidence Ohio’s system failed. http://www.globalresearch.ca/court-filing-reveals-how-2004-ohio-presidential-election-wa …

82. In 2008, attorney Cliff Arnebeck (formerly a Republican) filed a civil racketeering case against Karl Rove, which included allegations that the 2004 election was rigged. https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ …

83. On November 3, 2008, “Connell swore under oath [in deposition] that, ‘To the best of my knowledge, it was not a fail-over case scenario…” http://www.globalresearch.ca/court-filing-reveals-how-2004-ohio-presidential-election-was-hacked-unexpected-shift-in-votes-for-george-w/25786 …

84. “Bob Magnan, a state IT specialist for the Ohio Secretary of State during the 2004 election, agreed that there was no failover scenario. Magnan said he was unexpectedly sent home at 9 p.m. on election night and private contractors ran the system for Blackwell.” https://www.globalresearch.ca/court-filing-reveals-how-2004-ohio-presidential-election-was-hacked-unexpected-shift-in-votes-for-george-w/25786 …

85. “Late on Election Day, John Kerry showed an insurmountable lead in exit polling, and many considered his victory all but certified. Yet the final vote tallies in thirty states deviated widely from exit polls, with discrepancies favoring George W. Bush in all but nine.” https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ …

86. “The greatest disparities [in 04] were concentrated in battleground states — particularly Ohio.” https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ …

87. “In one Ohio precinct,” exit polls gave Kerry “67 % of the vote, but the certified tally gave him only 38%.” https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ …

88. Although Connell testified in a deposition on November 3, 2008, he died in a plane crash on December 9, 2008, before he could testify at trial. https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ …

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republican-it-guru-dies-in-plane-crash/

89. “Arnebeck believes the data being routed to Tennessee was used by G.O.P. partisans to target Ohio counties that were ripe for vote tampering. ‘The SmarTech people may have been guiding the manipulation of paper ballots in places like Warren County,’ Arnebeck told me.” https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/

90. According to “Stephen Spoonamore, an IT specialist (and Republican) who has consulted on cybersecurity for Boeing, MasterCard, the Navy, and the State Department,” SmartTech “might have been able to use Connell’s interface to gain access to and modify vote totals.” https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/

91. Here is a link to Jon Conyers’ House Judiciary Committee Report re: 2004 voting irregularities. http://www.votescam.org/preserving_democracy_what_went_wrong_in_ohio_2004?recruiter_id=2 …

92. Here is a link to the transcript of a Congressional hearing about the 2004 recount in Ohio. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2005-01-06/html/CREC-2005-01-06-pt1-PgH84-6.htm …

93. Directors of the Election Boards in two Counties stated that Triad (an affiliate of the butterfly ballot company in 2000) had remote access to computers used in the 2004 recount; Triad reportedly also handed out recount “cheat sheets.”

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2005-01-06/html/CREC-2005-01-06-pt1-PgH84-6.htm …

94. After the election, it was discovered that, in late Aug. 04, the DHS had quietly released this Cyber Alert regarding the Diebold GEMS system, which felon Dean had programmed. http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2724

95. Fortunately, Jennifer Brunner (a Democrat), replaced Blackwell in 2007, and she worked hard to improve Ohio’s election system for 2008. https://www.citybeat.com/news/article/13019136/brunner-promises-cleaner-presidential-election-in-ohio-this-fall

96. Brunner even sued Diebold/Premier alleging the company’s touch-screen voting machines “didn’t work properly” and that “votes in at least 11 counties were ‘dropped’ in prior elections when memory cards were uploaded to computer servers.” The case was settled in 2010, with the company agreeing to pay $470,000 plus up to $2.4 million in free software licensing. The company also agreed to provide up to 2,909 new machines statewide, plus a 50% discount in maintenance fees, plus a 50% discount for “precinct-based optical scanner voting machines.”

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2010/08/12/state-maker-of-voting-machines-settle-case.html

97. But American had not seen the last of its election irregularities.

98. In 2010, Jim DeMint, a “Tea Party hero and radical Christian-right candidate,” was elected to the US Senate from South Carolina after his Democratic rival — an ACCUSED SEX OFFENDER with NO CAMPAIGN — implausibly defeated a RETIRED JUDGE in the primary by 18%.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/12537-why-the-democrats-and-media-deny-election-rigging

99. The 2014 CNP directory lists DeMint as a member. https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/cnp_redacted_final.pdf …

100. DeMint is also a major proponent of a Constitutional Convention.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/271411-jim-demint-resigns-from-senate

101. “According to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, DeMint once said this at a South Carolina rally: ‘If someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.’” http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/senate-loses-jim-demint-and-his-crazy/#

102. Governor Scott Walker’s recall election in 2012 was also anomalous. Whereas exit polls had Walker within .1% of his Democratic rival, Walker officially won by 6%.

https://johnhively.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/how-scott-walker-and-company-used-fraud-to-win-the-recall-election/

103. Scott Walker is not in the CNP directory. But he won the “Paul Weyrich award” in the run-up to his 2012 election.

104. This article explains how Scott Walker wants to call that Constitutional Convention proposed by Weyrich as well.

105. This article shows how Walker is attacking public universities. http://archive.jsonline.com/blogs/purple-wisconsin/306818841.html

106. This article shows how Scott Walker (CNP) would like to ban abortions even in the case of rape or incest.

107. And let’s not forget Trump’s own astonishing defeat of Hillary Clinton, which landed Kellyanne, Bannon, and DeVos high profile positions in the administration. The “red shifts” between the exit polls and the official results in the 2016 general election are striking — especially in Ohio (7.9%), Pennsylvania (5.1%), and Wisconsin (4.7%). (“Red shift”= shift to right between exit poll & official result.) http://tdmsresearch.com/2016/11/10/2016-presidential-election-table/ …

108. Each of these poll-defying Republican victories has furthered the goals of the CNP.

109. If you still think those goals are unrealistic, think again.

110. The CNP is virulently anti-LGBT, & 150 members signed a letter early this year urging Trump to sign an anti-LGBTQ executive order.

https://www.toddstarnes.com/uncategorized/conservatives-call-on-trump-to-protect-religious-liberty/

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/secretive-council-national-policy-pushing-trump-sign-religious-liberty-order

111. Several months later, the Trump administration argued that federal law doesn’t protect gay employees.

112. And in July 2017, Trump tweeted that transgender people are no longer welcome in the military.

113. The CNP also wants to defund public education in favor of Christian schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/influential-conservative-group-trump-devos-should-dismantle-education-department-and-bring-god-into-classrooms/2017/02/15/196bf872-f2df-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?utm_term=.819b148d6733 …

114. So Trump’s proposed budget slashed the Department of Education by $9.2 billion & increased money for school choice (Christian schools).

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/05/22/529534031/president-trumps-budget-proposal-calls-for-deep-cuts-to-education

115. The CNP is virulently anti-choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_National_Policy#Conferences_and_political_plans …

116. So Trump has been consistently anti-choice in his policy making.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/politics/donald-trump-planned-parenthood-money/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/trump-gag-rule-abortion.html

117. Weyrich’s ALEC organization-to which Kochs belong — remains central to the current push for a Constitutional Convention. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/us/inside-the-conservative-push-for-states-to-amend-the-constitution.html

118. The calls for a Constitutional Convention are not as far fetched as you might expect.

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/6/29/republicans_have_trifecta_control_of_25

119. Even Hillary recently sounded the alarm about Republicans’ plans for a Constitutional Convention: “[T]he right-wing… is very serious about calling a constitutional convention. They need 34 states. Last I checked they were like at 28–29.”

https://grabien.com/story.php?id=127797

120. I’m not saying there is a definitely a conspiracy by the Religious Right to destroy democracy and re-write the Constitution.

121. But I am saying we should embrace publicly hand counted elections — and throw away the voting machines — just in case.

August 4, 2019 update

Oliver North, president of the NRA until his ouster this year, is also a member of the CNP.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/27/nra-oliver-north-gun-lobby-wayne-lapierre-trump

Source: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Council_for_National_Policy

Convicted embezzler (turned Christian) Bill Dallas, whose companies appear to have caused massive voter data breaches in recent years, is also listed in the 2014 CNP directory.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/01/04/191-million-leak-bill-dallas-christian-anti-abortion/ [“Right-Wing Company Of Convicted Embezzler Turned Christian Linked To Huge Leaks Of US Voter Records”]

Bio: Jennifer Cohn is an attorney turned election integrity advocate in the San Francisco Bay Area. After a few years working on criminal appeals, she practiced insurance coverage and appellate law for about 18 more. Since the 2016 election, she has worked full time researching and raising awareness about our insecure voting machines. She wants to help improve the situation so that the American people have a secure playing field going into 2018.