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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoes the Romney Family Now Own Your E-Vote? - YEP, PRETTY MUCH - By Bob Fitrakis
Does the Romney Family Now Own Your E-Vote?
October 18, 2012 at 09:35:55
By Bob Fitrakis
by Gerry Bello, Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
Will you cast your vote this fall on a faulty electronic machine that's partly owned by the Romney Family? Will that machine decide whether Romney will then inherit the White House?
Through a closely held equity fund called Solamere, Mitt Romney and his wife, son and brother are major investors in an investment firm called H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. in turn holds a majority share and three out of five board members in Hart Intercivic, a company that owns the notoriously faulty electronic voting machines that will count the ballots in swing state Ohio November 7. Hart machines will also be used elsewhere in the United States ( Hart Intercivic ).
In other words, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall's election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public. But they will help decide who "owns" the White House.
They are especially crucial in Ohio, without which no Republican candidate has ever won the White House. In 2004, in the dead of election night, an electronic swing of more than 300,000 votes switched Ohio from the John Kerry column to George W. Bush, giving him a second term. A virtual statistical impossibility, the 6-plus% shift occurred between 12:20 and 2am election night as votes were being tallied by a GOP-controlled information technology firm on servers in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In defiance of a federal injunction, 56 of Ohio's 88 counties destroyed all election records, making a recount impossible. Ohio's governor and secretary of state in 2004 were both Republicans, as are the governors and secretaries of state in nine key swing states this year
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MORE:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Does-the-Romney-Family-Now-by-Bob-Fitrakis-121018-232.html
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4724
janlyn
(735 posts)My county offers a paper ballot. I have ALWAYS voted paper ballot. As a tech person I know that computer programed machines are only as good as the people who program them.And numbers can be easily fudged!!
I would urge everyone to ask for a paper ballot!
peace13
(11,076 posts)Check to verify that they will be there on election day because if not you will have to use a machine. I vote early, on paper, at the BOE and encourage anyone who votes absentee to drop their ballot off in person at the BOE.
peace13
(11,076 posts)Please note in Ohio on election day there are no paper ballots unless you vote PROVISIONAL! Folks, in Ohio if you walk in to vote you will use a machine unless you plan on casting a provisional ballot.
Stevepol
(4,234 posts)where I am in Kansas (Sedgwick County), the paper is immediately run through an optiscan to be counted and there are no required audits. You might want to check to see how the paper is counted.
The paper doesn't mean much if it's not hand-counted. The optiscans are just as easy to maliciously program as the touch screens.
Something that people need to recognize and remember:
When the vote is counted in total secrecy without verification, it's impossible to have a democracy.
thanks Stevepol I did not know that, and I love it we I garner new info!!!
yankeepants
(1,979 posts)the DOJ and the Obama campaign is all over this.
It sickens me.
peace13
(11,076 posts)This is sickening. Our former Dem SOS said five years ago that our machines were easily hackable then. Not a thing has been done about it. After professing this she ran for another office in the middle of her SOS term and left us with a Republican SOS. Yes folks we are in trouble.
But hey, The people of this country have been out to lunch for so long it is probably too late to stop the machine. We were protesting on the statehouse steps for a month and a half but no one joined us. Kerry rolled over and that was it. Go figure.
When Jimmy Carter comes out and says fair elections for all Americans we can get the pencil and ballot out and begin again to count the votes. Until then we do not even have the third world protection that our former President affords other countries.
CrispyQ
(36,509 posts)chortling about how we're going to win, how it's in the bag.
I didn't know that about your SOS running for another office. ~heavy sigh. They could do it again.
Baitball Blogger
(46,757 posts)bkkyosemite
(5,792 posts)should be banned from running for any office.
bkkyosemite
(5,792 posts)part of the machines being used. I see a fix coming in...
Cha
(297,652 posts)WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)bkkyosemite
(5,792 posts)We need to start a petition to state we want a paper trail and that we the public are the owners of our vote. I know it's wishful thinking but wish we could stop this blantant corruption before our eyes. It's sickening! Maybe if there were enough of us we could make a dent in turning this around.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)it will require things blowing up. The Dems were first confronted with this 12 years ago, and have done absolutely nothing about it for 12 years. Disgusting.
Booster
(10,021 posts)CrispyQ
(36,509 posts)so crickets was better than something.
ananda
(28,876 posts)..
IDemo
(16,926 posts)It seems to me they have performed very well for the task they were designed for.
chowder66
(9,080 posts)No candidate should have any association whatsoever with any type of voting machine, ballot producers, etc.
CrispyQ
(36,509 posts)k&r
Blue Owl
(50,494 posts)The very sound of it reeks of white collar fraud.
Cha
(297,652 posts)election.. this looks like it says differently.
This is some scary shit.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)DearHeart
(692 posts)He and Queen Anne are just too desperate!
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)If they do, there won't be any repercussions. We're going to keep getting bullied until we hit back.
DearHeart
(692 posts)If they did steal it, what would people do? I'm afraid that most people would just accept it and not bother to protest or "hit back". I don't know that I can handle another election being stolen. And, since the Romney's (Tagg, Anne and another family member) own the company that makes the electronic voting machines, I got that sinkin feeling!
FamilyMan
(31 posts)Here is a link to my thread on what I found...it looks like Karl Rove and company are trying to engineer a horse race so they can let their machines work their 'magic' if things get tight: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021577305