this isn’t the ukraine, we accept what we’re told

The doctor told me that I need to sleep more (the fluttering eye, he says, is probably caused by fatigue), so this will be quick… Tomorrow morning at 10:00 the Democrats on the House Judiciary committee will begin hearings on the 2004 election irregularities. (I’m told that it’ll be on C-Span.) In the process of discussing the more traditional vote suppression efforts that were seen in Ohio, some are speculating that they might make mention of Clint Curtis, a programmer who claims to have been approached about hacking the vote for the Republicans. You can read about Curtis and his claims at the Blue Lemur site, but here’s a quick clip:

Curtis, who signed an affidavit which has been delivered to the House Judiciary Committee, has accused Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) of requesting the development of software which would allow vote totals to be tampered. Feeney, who now sits on Judiciary, was then the general counsel and lobbyist for Curtis’-then employer, Yang Enterprises, as well as a rising star of the Florida state congress.

I’ve seen a few mentions of there being a history of animosity between Curtis and Feeney, so this could very well just be an attempt on the part of Curtis to tarnish Feeney’s name. At the very minimum, however, we know that some of his story checks out, and that there is some evidence of a tie between the Republican party and Yang Industries, the NASA sub-contractor for which Curtis worked. The story, however, gets weird from there, so, if I were you, I wouldn’t expect much. (The most recent thing I’ve heard is that Curtis is now claiming that, since signing the affidavit against Feeney, the Republicans have killed his beloved pet dog. Who know though? These days, nothing would surprise me.)

Karl Rove couldn’t have planned it any better if he’d tried. Right now, the Democrats are in disarray, and no one knows what in the hell is going on. Kerry is essentially AWOL. Bev Harris has gone off the deep end. And we’re spending our time talking about whether or not BushCo had a software engineer’s dog snuffed. Meanwhile, the conservatives are lobbying Wikipedia to remove any mention of voting irregularities, and everything’s being swept up. Maybe getting Dean onboard as the head of the DNC will bring some focus, but I wonder if it’ll be enough to pull the party back together again and bring focus to things like election reform.

UPDATE:
Curtis has apparently posted his story on-line. I think he probably undermines his credibility by not just sticking to the facts of the case, but if what he’s saying is true, you can hardly blame him for being upset and editorializing a bit. Again, it’s very likely that his allegations are false, so take them for what they’re worth. (“No, I’m not gonna’ be a sucker like Dan Rather.”)