About Ken Block

Ken Block, President of Simpatico Software Systems, Inc,  is a software engineer and entrepreneur whose professional path led him into the messy world of politics. Ken specializes in database technologies, spearheading groundbreaking projects such as the country’s first state-wide debit card benefits system, the Lone Star Card SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program; "food stamps"), for the State of Texas. Ken also pioneered the use of relational databases for online lottery systems.

Ken leveraged his expertise to analyze waste and fraud, saving Texas more than $1 billion by uncovering a range of flaws in that state’s benefits programs. Another project in this vein included an analysis of waste and fraud within Rhode Island's Medicare and SNAP programs. 

With a fulfilling career in technology, Ken was not looking to get into politics, but the feeling that 'politics as usual' was turning into a divided, unproductive, hot mess compelled him to do so. His foray into government started with an arduous battle to establish the Moderate Party of Rhode Island, in his home state. Founding this centrist party required a successful legal challenge to the constitutionality of Rhode Island’s ballot access laws, collecting tens of thousands of signatures, and patience. 

Ken then embarked on two gubernatorial campaigns. The first was in 2010, as a Moderate, on the ticket for the new state party he’d earned the right to create, and in 2014 as a Republican. His platform for both campaigns remained consistently focused on quality-of-life issues such as education and economics. Ken lost the 2014 GOP primary by 3,000 votes. Voter fraud was not to blame, and it was not a stolen election. 

Remaining a private citizen, Ken continued to invest his time in civic engagement. His good government advocacy work successfully helped remove single-party voting from the Rhode Island ballot; which 37 other states had already done. This keeps voters from voting blindly by party by checking a single box on the ballot. Advocates spent over 40 years pushing for this voting reform before Ken got involved. Ken founded a nonprofit organization, WatchDogRI, through which he is working to bring a gubernatorial line-item veto to Rhode Island. This crucial check-and-balance reform, in place in 44 states, allows a governor to strike specific lines from the budget. 

With all this work surrounding voting and elections, Ken became a leading expert on voter data analytics. In the past decade, he has analyzed voter data from more than 40 states (the few he has yet to analyze do not provide their data to the public), and he has served as an expert in legal challenges that involve voting data, voter fraud, and election integrity.

If getting into politics was an unexpected turn in Ken’s career, a phone call from the Trump campaign asking for an analysis of the 2020 presidential election was an astounding twist. Ken worked for a whirlwind of 30 days analyzing President Trump's fraud claims for the Trump 2020 campaign. At the end of this work, he found no evidence to support the claim that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election due to voting fraud. Further, Ken was able to debunk fraud claims by those advancing the Stop The Steal initiative.

Ken has received multiple subpoenas about his work for the Trump campaign. These cases include Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal investigation and District Attorney Fani Willis' investigation in Fulton County, Georgia.

Ken Block resides in Rhode Island with his wife, two kids, and dog, Tilly. He has lived in Rhode Island for nearly his entire adult life.