franke
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http://konformist.com/archives/2006/01-2006/kn4m0102.txt
Other Players Tied to Bush-Cheney
While Vogel helped create the voter fraud myth and Hearne acted as the group's general counsel, a man named Jim Dyke acted as spokesperson for the dubious ACVR. Dyke served for many years as Republican National Committee Communications Director. In October, Dyke emerged as a White House spokesperson on National Public Radio pushing the ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.
Dyke and Hearne incorporated their "nonpartisan" tax-exempt voting rights organization in Dallas, Texas, only three business days prior to the Ney hearings in Ohio's capital. Despite its lack of history, the ACVR was the only "voting rights group" called to testify on election irregularities in Ohio. With a few exceptions, like Raw Story and Bradblog, news organizations have ignored these obvious political connections.
Other interesting individuals involved in<b> so-called "election reform" activities in Ohio are William E. Franke of Gannon Technologies Group</b> and Steve Hertzberg of the Election Science Institute.
Franke, a close friend of former Attorney General John Ashcroft, installed a computer operating system for Ohio Secretary of State J.<b> Kenneth Blackwell</b>. The Gannon Technologies website bragged that the Ohio Secretary of State joins the FBI and a host of other government agencies as clients of "an innovative system that compiles records in different formats via an imaging program with 100 percent accuracy.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">" One worker who helped install the technology warned the Free Press that there were possible back doors into the system and it may have "points of vulnerability."</span>
<b>Franke came to national attention during the 2004 election as the man heading the operations of the Swift Boat Veterans and Vietnam POWs for Truth</b>. Their nasty attack ads against John Kerry became legendary.
<b>
Hertzberg, the project director of Election Science Institute (ESI</b>), received a contract in 2005 from the Franklin County commissioners to monitor and certify new voting machines. Hertzberg's website is dedicated to disputing any scientific claims of election fraud in Ohio. Oddly, Hertzberg's biography posted at the ESI website shows he has no advanced degrees in political science, only a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from Purdue University. As Hertzberg explains it, he "spent the first several years of his career as a civilian within the U.S. Department of Defense" also " . . . serving as a Project Manager and Test Director for highly visible military development programs. . . ."
Hertzberg launched an organization called<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Vote Watch in 2002 before renaming it Election Science Institute in 2005. Recent ESI publications seek to discredit real social scientists with Ph.D.s who claim there was election fraud.</span>
The ability of the Bush-Cheney White House to both blatantly repress poor and minority voters in the 2004 election and divert attention from these activities to spin this political operation into a bogus election reform bill bodes well for their ability to win the 2006 mid-term elections, despite a majority of the voters disapproving of the president's performance.
Bob Fitrakis is the co-editor of "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election?" with Harvey Wasserman (www.freepress.org) and co-counsel with Cliff Arnebeck in the Alliance for Democracy suit against the Hocking County Board of Elections.
<span class="profile_summary"><span id="summary_full" style="display: inline;">William
Franke, the man who once owned the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and who in
<b>2004 helped found Swift Boat Veterans </b>for Truth to attack the war record
of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, is today getting some
bad press of his own.
Franke, who made millions in real-estate investments and other ventures
through his St. Louis-based holding company Gannon International, is the
subject of dozens of lawsuits filed this year that suggest he and his
various business entities are in a financial tailspin.
Franke's former chief operating officer at Gannon International, Robert
Greene, filed more than a dozen lawsuits against his former boss in St.
Louis County Circuit Court. Greene, who worked for Franke for 26 years
before resigning in March 2010 over disagreements with Franke, contends
in court filings that he still has an equity stake in 19 different
Gannon subsidiaries and alleges that Franke is improperly siphoning
money from those companies for his "own personal use" and to pay the
expenses of other businesses under his control.
Franke founded Gannon in 1983 after years of practicing law with a focus
on real estate and finance. With Gannon, Franke parlayed those skills
to amass a sizeable real-estate portfolio. Profits fron Gannon allowed
Franke to dabble for a short-time in publishing, when he purchased the
foundering St. Louis Globe-Democrat in 1986. The conservative daily
folded several months later, costing Franke and other investors a
reported $7 million to $8 million.
In 2002, Franke moved from St. Louis to the Washington D.C. area. A few
years later -- in 2005 -- he purchased a $6.3 million mansion in the
tony D.C-suburb of McLean, Virginia. Franke called the manse home until
March of 2011 when he sold it for $6.5 million to a limited-liability
company called JUYAJ. JUYAJ is a trust owned by Washington Nationals'
star Jayson Werth, and that the baseball player currently lives in the
home. Watkins says Franke now resides in an apartment in the D.C. area.
Like other members of SBVT, Franke was outraged that Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry -- a man who'd also served on a Swift
Boat patrol during Vietnam and then had the audacity to testify before a
Senate committee in 1971 about atrocities by U.S. troops during the war
-- was now running to become the nation's commander-in-chief. Running
the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth out of Gannon's offices, Franke helped
raise a reported $27 million for anti-Kerry attack ads that questioned
the candidate's war record</span></span>
http://littlesis.org/org/177961/Gannon_Technologies_Group
William Franke, the man who once owned the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and who in 2004 helped found Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to attack the war record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry... more »
Relationships Interlocks Giving Political Data
Business Positions
Gannon Technologies Group Specializes in object recognition technologies
Founder (past)
Other Positions & Memberships
Swift Boat Vets and Pow's for Truth
Founder (past)
Friends & Colleagues
Orson Swindle POW in Vietnam, one of the organizers of Swiftboat Veterans for...
friend
Donation/Grant Recipients
1-10 of 21 :: see all
Keep Our Mission PAC Founded by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R., Ill.) as...
3 contributions · $6000 ('03?'06)
Rely on Your Beliefs Fund
1 contribution · $5000 ('04)
Roy Blunt US Senator and Representative from Missouri
3 contributions · $4200 ('05)
Fred Dalton Thompson US Senator from Tennessee
1 contribution · $2300 ('07)
Mitt Romney Former Governor of Massachusetts
1 contribution · $2300 ('07)
Susan Collins US Senator from Maine
1 contribution · $2300 ('08)
James Thomas Kolbe US Representative from Arizona
1 contribution · $2000 ('04)
Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee
1 contribution · $2000 ('03)
George W Bush 43rd US president, ex-governor of Texas, son of George H W Bush
1 contribution · $2000 ('03)
Rick Santorum US Representative and Senator from Pennsylvania
2 contributions · $2000 ('06)
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