by David Pepper
The website indicated where the company was headquartered, which also explained why Kelly drove where he did the day he died.
Philadelphia.
Chapter 10
LONDON: 119 days after the election
Every morning, Oleg Kazarov ate breakfast with a tight circle of executives. It was a working breakfast, Russian style. He nibbled on thin slices of raw salmon and capers, while the lieutenants provided updates and took orders. No food for them. Even over a morning meal, this was a top-down operation.
The team, five men from five different countries, met in his London boardroom two weeks after the president signed Energy 2020.
“How are our pipelines advancing?”
“All according to plan. In anticipation of the election, we did much of the pre-work, so we are moving forward quickly.”
The man who responded was Kazarov’s most trusted colleague. Although he used a combination of names over the years, his actual name was Liam Andersson. A 57-year-old Swede, a first-rate engineer, and a slick salesman, he and Kazarov first met while seeking their fortunes in the Russian hinterlands in the early ’90s.
Andersson always sat at the opposite end of the table when they met with others, clearly the second most important person at the meeting.
“When will flow begin?” Kazarov asked.
“In eight months.”
“That is not soon enough. We have already waited years too long. Do whatever you need to do to speed things up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kazarov shook his head, disappointed he even had to say the words.
Intense impatience was one of the Russian’s central management strategies. Jumping in line. Pushing hard. Cutting corners to get where he needed to go. Only occasional violence.
And it had always worked. It began with his first acquisition when, in his twenties, he outmaneuvered an old party boss to seize control of a large gas enterprise in the Urals. Next, over the ensuing five years, he monopolized all levels of the Russian energy industry. Then came his historic Siberian breakthrough and rapid expansion into Europe and the Caucasus. And now, the pinnacle: seizing a vast energy gold mine in the heart of America.
“If I had your lazy patience, I would still be living in St. Petersburg,” he said, glaring at Andersson, then looking at the others. “With nothing.”
Chapter 11
MONROE COUNTY: 105 days after the election
“He was here one day, alive as can be. Then dead the next. I’m still shaken up by it all. He was a good man.”
Betty Struthers tried to be friendly, but the trauma showed on her grim face. I was back in Monroe County, hoping to learn whatever Kelly had.
“I can only imagine. What did you guys talk about?”
“Was a lot like our conversation but he really was focused on our Abacus machines. He was skeptical. And intense.”
“From what I can tell, that’s why he drove to Philadelphia. If you don’t mind, tell me more about the Abacus machines.”
“Sure. We were thrilled to get the system upgrade a couple years ago, and the commissioners were excited by the great price.”
She explained that when the county learned of the new federal requirement to include a visible paper trail for all electronic voting machines, they had conducted an open bid to replace their old systems. The new Abacus system met all the specifications and came at the lowest price.
“It wasn’t even close.”
“Do you know anything more about the company?”
“Sure. We’ve used them for years. In the days of paper ballots, they dominated the industry. They were slow to evolve after the Bush versus Gore election led to new technologies, so a lot of places abandoned them. Some poorer counties like ours kept them because they were less expensive. They seem to have made a comeback with the upgraded system. I know a few other counties in Ohio use them as well.”
“Which ones?”
“I can’t remember all of them, but I know Athens County uses them. They had the old Abacus machines like we did, then upgraded. Come to think of it, Jefferson and Washington picked them up when the new machines came out as well, replacing a different vendor.”
“How can I confirm who uses them?”
“We have to report whatever equipment we are using to the Secretary of State’s office, so they should have that information for every county.”
“And do you have the records from when you purchased these machines?”
“It’s all public record. Leave me your card, and I’ll send you copies of the entire bid process.”
“Thank you. Was there anything else that Congressman Kelly asked you that I haven’t?”
“Not that I remember. He thought it was strange that Abacus offered such a low price compared to its larger competitors. And that they had so many machines in his district. Not just here, but other nearby counties.”
On the drive home, I dialed the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.
“How can I find out what election equipment each county uses?”
“We update the list before every election, and whenever a county makes a change.”
“Can you email me the past ten years of the list?”
“You got it.”
“I need it right away. Thank you.”
Funny. I felt rushed even though I faced no deadline. And no editor. That hadn’t happened in years.
I flipped on the radio to distract myself. A news update focused entirely on President Johnson’s signing ceremony for the Energy 2020 legislation earlier that day. Congressman Gibbs even got to attend, and he reminded the listeners back home that the bill had been his first vote in Congress.
“I received a ceremonial pen because of my role in making it happen,” he boasted. “But it was the voters of the Sixth District that made it happen, and now they will receive the benefits.”
Of course, he failed to mention that Lee Kelly also had supported the bill.
Minutes after I listened to him celebrate, I began to drive past crews working on major pipeline construction right off the road. The work site followed the highway for miles.
Apparently some of the companies in the region had predicted the bill was going to pass and had started early. Lucky them. Their bet was paying off.
* * *
YOUNGSTOWN
The email I received the next morning contained ten years of data, listing Ohio’s eighty-eight counties and the equipment each used. The tables were inscrutable at first, but the Secretary of State’s elections specialist walked me through them.
“So Monroe County used an old Abacus system for eight years, then replaced it with the new Abacus system for the past two?”
“Yes, sir. You can see right at the bottom of page 2, two-thirds of the way across the page, where that happened.”
And as Struthers had recalled in her office, the chart seemed to indicate that Athens County followed the exact same pattern: eight years with the old Abacus, final two with the new.
“Same with Athens County?”
“Looks like it. Top of page 1.”
Jefferson and Washington counties, also in Kelly’s district, replaced their Diebold systems—Diebold dominated the election equipment industry—with Abacus systems two years ago. In the opposite corner of the state, Wood County, south of Toledo and home to Bowling Green, did the same.
“And this shows Jefferson, Washington and Wood Counties switching from Diebold to Abacus, right?”
“Sure does.”
“I think I can land the plane from here. Thanks for your help.”
As I absorbed the rest of the document, several patterns emerged across Ohio’s eighty-eight counties.
First, thirty-two small, rural counties had used the old Abacus systems for the first eight years of the ten-year period. But two years ago, twenty-fiv
e of those counties abandoned Abacus for Diebold or Seiko, the second largest company in the industry. Only seven counties opted for the upgraded Abacus systems. Four of those seven were in eastern Ohio—Athens, Carroll, Noble and Monroe counties—while another three clustered west and south of Toledo.
Second, almost all other small counties had used Diebold or Seiko machines for the entire ten years. Only a handful switched to Abacus two years ago: Jefferson, Washington, and Wood counties.
Diebold dominated the largest counties. Franklin (home to Columbus), Summit (Akron), Lucas (Toledo), Mahoning (Youngstown) and Cuyahoga (Cleveland) all used Diebold machines for all ten years.
Which made Hamilton County, home of Cincinnati, the curious exception. Two years ago, Hamilton County switched from Diebold to Abacus.
* * *
To follow up on these initial findings, I exercised some journalistic muscles I hadn’t worked out in a long time.
Over the years, many of my best scoops came from digging through public records. In the age of emails, public officials routinely forget that almost everything they write, text, type, or jot down is a public record. And all those records must be disclosed.
Of course, members of Congress exempted themselves from this rule, which made them all the more vulnerable if they later held a different office. We ended one Ohio Attorney General’s career when the A.G. himself, a former congressman, traded valuable public contracts for campaign donations, leaving a long paper trail through dozens of his own emails.
Elections records would clearly be less scandalous. But a paper trail documenting how county officials chose voting machines might prove helpful nonetheless.
Over half the counties used the same system for the entire decade, so I set those aside. But for each county that made a switch in election systems, and for all counties that used Abacus machines, I requested the public records documenting their bidding and decision-making process.
That afternoon, the package from Monroe County arrived. On top of the folder, a pleasant, handwritten note greeted me: “Here you go. —Betty :)”
The Monroe file documented a cash-strapped, small county struggling to meet what it considered an unfunded mandate.
“Our old Abacus system is not in compliance with new federal regulations,” Betty Struthers had warned in a memorandum to the Monroe County Commissioners. “If we do not upgrade by the deadline, we will face major fines.”
Minutes from the Commission meetings showed that they understood the need, but expressed deep concern about the cost.
“We barely have the dollars to keep the county jail open,” one commissioner said. “The last thing we need is another unfunded, costly mandate from the federal government.”
But they proceeded despite their complaining. As with all unfunded mandates, they had no choice.
Abacus, Diebold, and Seiko all submitted bids to do the county’s election work. All three proposed similar technologies—touch screen voting, a verifiable paper trail, and other security bells and whistles.
Despite its prior troubles, Abacus’ upgraded system satisfied all the criteria and looked every bit as impressive as its competitors. But the real difference was the cost. Abacus charged 20 percent less per machine, and its back-office system cost half of what the other two did.
It wasn’t a close call. The memo recommending Abacus touted tens of thousands of dollars in savings while ensuring a smooth transition. When the commissioners made the purchase, the money saved allowed them to add an additional corrections officer back to the jail staff.
Documents showed that the new system arrived late in the fall, easily in time for the next year’s primary. And it was in place for the November election that followed, when Kelly lost Monroe County.
The other counties’ responses arrived over the next week.
The six other counties that kept Abacus pursued the same course as Monroe. Each asked for bids, and Abacus offered its new system at a far lower cost. Game over.
Then there were the three counties—Wood, Washington, and Jefferson—that started with Diebold machines and switched to Abacus. Documents showed that Abacus reached out proactively to promote their new technology, and pitched their wares even more aggressively. They offered one-time credits, free technical support, and other frills to convince the counties to make the change. Abacus offered the winning bid in each county.
But that’s where, oddly, the Abacus aggression ended.
I first noticed it when reviewing Adams County, a small county east of Cincinnati. Adams had used Abacus for years. Facing the same need for an upgrade that Monroe did, the county invited bids. Diebold and Seiko submitted theirs as usual. But that was it. No proposal from Abacus. No response whatsoever. And Diebold went on to grab the business.
Adams County turned out to be the rule, not the exception. In the twenty-five counties that replaced their old Abacus systems with either a Diebold or Seiko system, Abacus failed to respond at all. No aggressive pitch, no cutthroat pricing. And its rivals won the day.
And then there was the oddest case of all.
Like every other large county, Hamilton County had used Diebold for years, so it did not need an upgrade. But the county asked for bids anyway. What prompted the process was an all-out sales pitch from Abacus, something it had not done in any of Ohio’s other large urban counties.
This time, Diebold took the threat from Abacus seriously. Ohio’s third largest county operated more than a thousand machines, so the company fought to keep the account far more aggressively than it had elsewhere. Instead of its small-county price of $3,500 per machine, Diebold offered Hamilton County a price of $2,600 per machine, much lower than Abacus’ price. And as the incumbent vendor, they offered lower transition costs.
Still, the county chose Abacus, ignoring the extra cost.
And one man had made it happen.
From the moment the discussion began, Elections Administration Director Dan Snyder advocated relentlessly for the switch.
“Diebold machines have exhibited numerous problems in recent elections,” one memo explained, detailing delays, breakdowns, and long lines at polling locations. “In the past two presidential campaigns, major snafus have embarrassed the County,” he concluded.
According to Snyder, Diebold had broken all its promises to fix the mess.
“Even worse, the County is being nickel-and-dimed every time we have to make technical fixes to the system.”
When Diebold’s price point came in under Abacus’, Snyder implored his bosses to select Abacus anyway.
“We simply cannot continue with the unacceptably substandard service and quality the incumbent vendor provides,” his final memorandum concluded.
Despite some heartburn about the extra cost, Hamilton County ultimately selected Abacus.
After poring over this pile of documents, I reached out to the counties that didn’t switch from Diebold or Seiko. My hunch was that Abacus never approached any of them either, and that’s exactly what they confirmed.
So that was it. Of eighty-eight counties, all but Hamilton County selected the lowest bidder. Perfectly reasonable, responsible behavior. County leaders were fulfilling their duties at the lowest price possible.
But what was Abacus up to?
On the surface, its sales plan didn’t look reasonable at all. In eleven counties, the company pulled out every stop to win and succeeded each time. But in seventy-seven other counties, Abacus abandoned the field entirely, allowing its competitors to secure account after account without so much as a proposal.
But a quick look at Ohio’s congressional map showed that what made no sense as a business matter made all the sense in the world on another plane.
Abacus was playing politics.
In picking eastern Ohio, northwest Ohio, and the odd beachhead in Cincinnati, Abacus located its machines in three congressional distric
ts. But not just any districts—the only three in Ohio where close elections took place.
Abacus had targeted Ohio’s only swing districts just in time for the next year’s election.
Chapter 12
SIBERIA: Six years before the election
The tall, wiry figure stepped out of the black jet, walked across the snow-blown runway, and climbed into the passenger seat of a brand new Mercedes van.
“Greetings, Yuri,” Oleg Kazarov said to the driver as they exited the tiny airport grounds. “Such a desolate place. Incredible to think any life exists here at all, let alone such a vast fortune.”
While he rarely traveled, Kazarov had wanted to see his burgeoning operation in person. So he had taken the seven-hour flight to this tiny airstrip in western Siberia and now set off for Siberneft headquarters. The road was basically straight, although the two-hour drive didn’t feel that way as Yuri navigated around an endless parade of potholes and ditches. The trek offered little to see but gray tundra and frozen marsh, with the occasional deer and caribou grazing near the road.
As bleak as the country was, Kazarov was proudest of the latest addition to his portfolio. If his initial victories had come from a mix of salesmanship, speed, and occasional brute force, this latest success stemmed entirely from Kazarov’s engineering background.
For years, he had preached the same mantra to his team: Innovation.
Every innovation, every efficiency, every breakthrough meant finding energy where others hadn’t. Finding it where others weren’t even looking. It meant more gas drilled, sold, and delivered. It meant less waste. And all of this together would drive his success in the very competitive West. It was here, in what many considered the most miserable place on Earth, that Kazarov’s obsession paid off the most.
When Kazarov first expanded into western Siberia, his company, Siberneft, had discovered an oil-rich formation of shale rock more than a mile under the surface, below traditional oil wells that had been tapped for decades. The deep formation stretched across hundreds of millions of acres, but, trapped within the shale rock, was hard to access.
