Reply #46: Oh my goodness... followed some links check this out

[Ellipsis]

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When Brutus Buckeye clicks on Blackwell's Election Night results link, will he recall that his tax dollars were among hundreds of thousands spent by Blackwell on the consulting firm that created the live election returns system was the very same consulting firm behind Bush-Cheney 2004?! Will anyone recognize that Dashboard clicks will be making a roundtrip through Tennessee when SOS J. Kenneth Blackwell throws the right switch on the Internets?

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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.

http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2006/11/7/115314/...



NewMedia Communications

On two occasions in recent elections, a third-party source recorded that the Ohio election results website 'election.sos.state.oh.us' was operating at an IP address which falls within the range assigned to service hosted by Chattanooga, TN-based Smartechcorp. The IP address assigned to 'election.sos.state.oh.us', 64.203.98.137, lies between IP addresses assigned to VoterVault.com and NRCC.org which are managed by the RNC and affiliates.

Mike Connell started NewMedia Communications and its 'non-partisan' spinoff GovTech Solutions which provide campaign and technical services to a "Who's Who" list of Republicans.


http://www.newmediacommunications.com/OurPeople.asp



GovTech solutions

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In 2002 and 2004, GovTech received authorization from the General Services Administration that allowed federal agencies to purchase services directly from the company without going through the full bidding process. A news release from the company said, "As a GSA-approved vendor, GovTech can contract directly with agencies to streamline the procurement process."

Between October 2002 and the first half of this year, the General Services Administration reported more than $800,000 paid to GovTech by federal agencies. The company has designed Web sites for the White House, Department of Energy, and the 2004 meeting of the Group of 8 in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, among others.

The GSA Schedule contracts from the federal government can serve as a stamp of approval for state and local government purchasers.

In Ohio, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's office paid about $465,000 to GovTech, which redesigned the Web site and worked with the office to present Election Night results in 2004. In 1999, when Blackwell co-chaired the congressional Census Monitoring Board, New Media had won a contract to redesign a bilingual Web site for the board.

more...

http://www.publicintegrity.org/consultants/default.aspx...


Clients of govtechsolutions

http://www.govtechsolutions.com/clients.asp



Yowsers... Theres much out there.