Did Hacker Group Anonymous Stop Karl Rove from Hijacking Election?

The 2012 presidential election kind of looked rigged from the get-go.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted had installed an untested, unapproved software patch for ballot counting just a week before the election. When various groups protested to the courts, Husted responded that the software patch ran outside of the federally-approved voting machinery. Therefore, it did not need testing and did not to be reviewed by the state election commission. The courts went along with him.

A few days later, the international hacker group Anonymous released a video. In it Anonymous warned that they were monitoring all the computers of Fox News analyst and Republican chief fundraiser Karl Rove. Anonymous warned Rove personally to not interfere with the election results.

That made sense. This was because Craig Unger warned Americans about the possibility of electioneering in his book, Boss Rove. That is where Unger argued that Rove’s software hackers hijacked the Ohio election results at 11:14 pm EST in 2004. That was when the Ohio vote-tallying computers all went offline. When they came back up, the vote counters had switched thousands of votes in favor of Senator John Kerry to President George W. Bush’s column.

Then, during election night in 2012, it was suddenly Unger’s story all over again—almost. This time the Ohio, statewide, vote-tallying computers went down at 11:13 pm EST. That was thirteen minutes after voter analyst Karl Rove had begun to throw his 30-minute tantrum live on Fox News. Rove was angry that the Fox analysts had called the Ohio election in favor of President Obama at 11:00 pm EST. During his rant, Rove went into a detailed analysis about how that part of the yet uncounted voter—25%—would throw the election to Romney. And then, bingo—

The Ohio computers went down in the middle of Rove’s rant. But when they came back up there was no change in the vote. Obama still led. Rove looked even more perplexed. He then argued for another 15 minutes that Romney could still win Ohio. Finally, Rove conceded that perhaps Romney might lose the state.

Then, two days after the 2012 election, Anonymous released another video. The hackers explained that they had inserted a firewall into Secretary of State Husted’s software patch. That had stopped the Ohio election counters from using it. The hackers said that they had analyzed the patch and that it would have flip-flopped the vote in the same counties that Karl Rove, of Fox, had argued would eventually swing the Ohio election to Romney.

Interesting, on election night, when the Ohio computers came back online, the vote tallying went on without the patch, and Obama won.

This whole thing might mean that the patch should be subpoenaed into court and examined for its potential to rig an election—especially since no one dared to complain that it did not work. And the counting kept on going, anyway, unquestioned. But that’s not all.

Anonymous claims that Mitt Romney’s Orca program was a fake, also. It was not meant to be used as a get-out-the-vote program as stated by the Romney campaign. Rather, it was meant to be used to divert and flip flop the vote in two other states, Florida and Virginia. Like Ohio, both states have Republican Secretaries of state who resolve voting issues. Makes you wonder, right? But there is more.

Mitt Romney was so sure of winning that he did not have anyone prepare a concession speech for him ahead of time. If that sounds a little suspicious, consider this. The election had already been called a week earlier in Obama’s favor by the best known poll analyst in the U.S., Nate Silver.

There are a dozen reports concerning these events. The Humboldt Sentinel, in its online version, ran a video showing talk radio host Thom Hartmann’s report on Rove’s supposed election rigging. The Drudge Report also covered it in its online version. What is more, The Daily Kos reported on this story. Yet most all of the major media won’t touch this story about Anonymous and Karl Rove. That is because it contradicts what Americans believe about their elections—that they are generally just and fair.

Congress also would have to be pushed pretty hard before it ever touches the story. As far as the Congress is concerned, the election is over. And after all, the committee it voted in to law to fix the problems with national elections has no sitting members and goes unfunded. This shows that Congress is deadlocked about issues that would regulate U.S. national elections.

Yet, if you are a concerned voter, please contact the U.S. senators from your state at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm/.

This egregious attempt at vote rigging by Karl Rove and the Romney campaign—if true—must not go unpunished. At the minimum, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida should be forced to have a ballot paper trail. This would allow for a verifiable recount if this same thing turns up in 2016. The current electronic voting systems in those states cannot be used to do a legitimate recount.