Incredibly enough, it’s been ten years this month since we broke the story about vote-rigging software whistleblower Clint Curtis. It was certainly the biggest story we’d broken up until that time, in December of 2004, and, for some, it is still the story we may be best known for.
That’s not surprising as it involves election fraud, touch-screen voting systems, Florida, a powerful Congressman, the Bush family, Chinese spies and several disturbing deaths.
For those not familiar with it, you can find a quick summary here. The index of most of the key articles in our years-long series, beginning with our 12/6/2004 exclusive on Curtis’ sworn affidavit can be found at BradBlog.com/ClintCurtis. (And, yes, if you’re looking for the horrifying NSFW “crime scene photos” of the main death involved in this case, those are here.)
In short, Curtis was a software programmer from Oviedo, FL who claimed in a sworn 2004 affidavit and then sworn testimony before members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, that he was asked to create a vote-rigging software prototype for touch-screen voting systems back in 2000 by then Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), a very powerful Republican in the Sunshine State and a close friend of the Bush family. At the time, Curtis worked for a company named Yang Enterprises, Inc., which had many contracts with NASA and the state of Florida. In 2000, when he says Feeney asked him to create the vote-rigging software, Feeney was both the Speaker of the FL House, as well as a registered lobbyist for Yang. Feeney would also go on to great ignominy due to his dealings with Republican uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
There is much much more to this story, much of which was also eventually told in Murder, Spies and Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story, an award-winning documentary film by Patty Sharaf. It includes spying for China and at least two deaths in addition to the vote-rigging allegations, but I’ll let you explore it all via the links above and/or in my all-new interview with Curtis from this week’s KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast
As it’s been 10 years since we broke the initial story, it seemed a good time to get caught up with Curtis, reminisce a bit about the original story (and his eventual, gutsy, and at times hilarious campaign to run against Feeney for the U.S. House), as well as find out what he (and Feeney) have been up to since then — even as we’ve been almost-continuously reporting on new developments in the case over the years since we originally broke the story in late 2004.
I gotta say I enjoyed this interview with Clint — it was great to catch up with him — and I hope you will too.
Download MP3 or listen online below…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_ClintCurtis_10YearsLater_121014.mp3%5D
Perhaps we should be calling the ten years since you first published the Curtis affidavit as democracy’s lost decade.
There is something fishy about the election results which favorite music compared to voting results brings out (Oil-Qaeda Wins Big).
That’s a hell of a story. So much has happened, over so much time, it’s hard to remember all of the facets of the lurid adventure.
I was just wondering last week, what happened to Mr. Curtis. He’s a model for all of us.
To a Republican in congress, turning down a million dollars is tantamount to treason. They must have laughed at him for being so honest.
By the way: “Murder, Spies…” is a very good document.