Clint Curtis

Clinton Eugene "Clint" Curtis (born 1958) is an American attorney, computer programmer and ex-employee of NASA and ExxonMobil. He worked for Yang Enterprises (YEI) until February 2001. He is notable chiefly for making a series of whistleblower allegations about his former employer and about Republican Congressman Tom Feeney, including an allegation that in 2000, Feeney and Yang Enterprises requested Curtis's assistance in a scheme to steal votes by inserting fraudulent code into touch screen voting systems.

Curtis specifically alleged that, at the behest of Rep. Tom Feeney, in September 2000, he was asked to write a program for a touchscreen voting machine that would make it possible to undetectably change the results of an election. Curtis assumed initially that this effort was aimed at detecting Democratic fraud, but later learned that it was intended to benefit the Republican Party.

In 2001, Curtis first achieved public attention for a series of allegations against his former employer, Yang Enterprises, and against Tom Feeney, who was at that time serving as a Florida state legislator and as Yang's attorney and as Yang's lobbyist for local governments.

On May 10, 2001, shortly after leaving Yang and accepting a job with the Florida Department of Transportation, Curtis reported that Yang had overbilled the FDOT and hired an illegal alien. Approximately a year later, on April 1, 2002, Curtis and his supervisor were both fired, allegedly for violating FDOT policies. (Although Curtis's supervisor later settled a retaliation lawsuit brought relating to her firing, Curtis reports that he did not sue because he "missed the filing deadline.") During that same year, Curtis's accusations against Yang were the subject of a series of articles in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

In September 2004, Curtis self-published Just A Fly On The Wall, a book critical of the George W. Bush administration, Yang Enterprises, and Tom Feeney. In the edition of that book published before the 2004 election, Curtis focused on his earlier accusations against Yang, as well as accusations that Feeney used his influence with the Florida State government to Yang's benefit.

Curtis explained that the software could be used in any electronic tabulation machine or scanner. He spoke about this to the Conyers Voting Forum, after Conyers left the forum and turned over the dais on December 13, 2004.

On December 13, 2004, Wired News reported on Curtis's allegations. After repeating Curtis's allegations, summarized above, and Yang Enterprises' denial of those allegations, Wired concluded that "it remains to be seen if any new investigations can uncover the truth". In particular:

On March 3, 2005, Curtis passed a polygraph test given by Tim Robinson, the retired chief polygraph operator and 20-year veteran of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The polygraph was paid for by Kevin Walsh, a private investigator from Washington, D.C., who told the St. Petersburg Times that he had been hired to prove election fraud. Walsh refused to identify the client. Curtis has stated that the test was based on all the allegations in the affidavit that was provided to Conyers' Voting Forum.

In 2005, Feeney responded to Curtis's allegations in a news article posted in the St. Petersburg Times. According to the newspaper, Feeney stated:

In 2006, Curtis ran unsuccessfully against Feeney for the United States congressional seat in Florida's 24th congressional district. He ran again in 2008, losing in the Democratic primary to eventual winner of the seat, Suzanne Kosmas.

Yang Enterprises denied Curtis's allegations, and alleged that Curtis was a disgruntled former employee. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Curtis made his initial accusations against Yang one day after attorneys for Yang Enterprises questioned whether Curtis's employment with the FDOT violated a non-compete agreement and whether Curtis had taken a confidential computer program with him when he left Yang. According to the St. Petersburg Times, "Curtis said he would not have filed complaints about Yang if the company had not harassed him." Curtis denies that he stole any software from Yang Enterprises, and as of August 10, 2006, a lawsuit between Yang and Curtis was ongoing in Leon County, Florida.

In 2006, Curtis ran a campaign to unseat Republican incumbent Tom Feeney, the former attorney for Yang Enterprises and the person who Curtis had accused, since 2004, of soliciting Curtis to assist in attempted vote fraud in the 2000 election.

On October 26, 2006, The Orlando Sentinel reported on the status of Curtis's race against Tom Feeney. According to the Sentinel, although both Curtis and Feeney had reported that their internal polling showed them to be leading in the polls, a Zogby poll showed the race to be extremely close, with Feeney leading Curtis by 45 percent to 43 percent, with a 5 percent margin of error.

In 2007, Curtis enrolled as a student at the Barry University School of Law in Orlando, Florida.

In 2010, Clint Curtis was the Democratic nominee for Congress in California's 4th district, ultimately losing to incumbent Representative Tom McClintock.