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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVote counting company tied to Romney
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4725by Gerry Bello & Bob Fitrakis
September 27, 2012
Several Tanker trucks full of political ink have been spilled on Mitt Romney's tenure as a vulture capitalist at Bain Capital. A more important story, however, is the fact that Bain alumni, now raising big money as Romney bundlers are also in the electronic voting machine business. This appears to be a repeat of the the infamous former CEO of Diebold Wally ODell, who raised money for Bush while his company supplied voting machines and election management software in the 2004 election.
In all 234 counties of Texas, the entire states of Hawaii and Oklahoma, half of Washington and Colorado, and certain counties in swing state Ohio, votes will be cast on eSlate and ePollbook machines made by Hart Intercivic. Hart Intercivic machines have famously failed in Tarrant County (Ft. Worth), adding 10,000 non-existent votes. The EVEREST study, commissioned by the Ohio secretary of state in 2007, found serious security flaws with Hart Intercivic products.
Looking beyond the well-documented Google choking laundry list of apparent fraud, failure and seeming corruption that is associated with Hart Intercivic, an ongoing Free Press investigation turned its attention to the key question of who owns the voting machine companies. The majority of the directors of Hart come from the private equity firm H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. has been heavily invested in Hart Intercivic since July 2011, just in time for the current presidential election cycle. But who is H.I.G Capital?
malaise
(269,157 posts)Get thee to the greatest page
babsbunny
(8,441 posts)Bob Fitrakis works very hard!
malaise
(269,157 posts)calling out their attempts to steal these elections very early.
flamingdem
(39,319 posts)what can be done to prevent vote flipping?
I guess the polls, exit polls might help stop that but what a disaster to hear this news about the ownership and counters being Rmoney connected
glinda
(14,807 posts)annabanana
(52,791 posts)out in front of ALL the routes they've set up for themselves to game the election.
Kicking lots!
jsr
(7,712 posts)Figures.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Out of 49 partners and directors, 48 are men, and 47 are white. Eleven of these men, including H.I.G. Founder Tony Tamer, were formerly employed at Bain and Company
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)surrealAmerican
(11,362 posts)let's keep this kicked
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)nc4bo
(17,651 posts)jackbenimble
(251 posts)Why electronic voting machines don't spit out a receipt and keep another receipt copy internally like cash registers do. When I check out at a store I look at my receipt to make sure I was charged correctly. If I have to use an electronic voting machine I want a receipt to show my vote was counted the way I intended it to be.
valerief
(53,235 posts)reformist2
(9,841 posts)Maybe allow the old style voting machines. MAYBE. But I don't even trust them.
JHB
(37,161 posts)There are ways to abuse that system, but they are pretty well understood and have a number of physical requirements. They may take longer to count, but so what?
And there are no precincts in America that are too big to count by hand.
glinda
(14,807 posts)how much corruption there is going on. I mean...how can anyone feel that this election will be accurate??????
goclark
(30,404 posts)loyalsister
(13,390 posts)n\t
Volaris
(10,274 posts)in case a hard copy is needed for a re-count. Both copies signed by BOTH parties, in agreement that they MATCH EXACTLY.
And it should be Federal LAW that the paper trail gets archived for at least 7 years-- If its good enough for Credit Reporting Agencies and the IRS, it should be just dandy for elections, as well.
Fuckers.
And if you are actually caught committing Election Fraud, (NOT voter Fraud, and there IS a difference) and your candidate WINS, your prison term should be not less than the term that "elected" official gets to serve in office. Yeah, you got your Man elected, but guess what? For as long he holds that office, YOU get to sit in Prison. Have fun with that.
And really, how hard can it be to build an electronic voting machine with a printer in it? Because the old saying about better mousetraps seems ABSOLUTELY true in this case....because if there are any takers, I'll pony up money to buy stock in a company hell-bent on helping keep America TRULY free...=)
annabanana
(52,791 posts)crazylikafox
(2,760 posts)Smilo
(1,944 posts)K&R
Rocky2007
(168 posts)Smilo
(1,944 posts)nycbiscuit
(46 posts)that really concerns me. Quite nervous between this, the false voter registrations, roll scrubbing...
Also, spoke with three friends yesterday, and all three did not know that their polling places had changed. I just learned myself that my own polling place had changed last week. There is going to be a lot of people who show up on election day to their old polls and wonder WTF.
Frustratedlady
(16,254 posts)JHB
(37,161 posts)RSN is an aggregator, with permission to reprint material from a number of sources, including this article.
ashling
(25,771 posts)Texas has 254 counties - the article boldly asserts
I agree that this is a truly alarming situation - the machines, et al., but if the authors cound'nt get the above easily verifiable number correct, what about the others?
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)Digit errors can be hard to catch by an editor or a fact checker, especially when the difference is visually similar like 234 and 254. The important numbers are the ones you will never see after the votes have been flipped.
ashling
(25,771 posts)but it is still troubling
OK, I admit that I teach Texas Government and so I deal with this number fairly frequently - which I guess is why it stuck out - but the number I recall having seen that number before used for Texas counties in asrticles cited on here.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)I could find that refers to Texas counties and the number 234 referred to stock laws. It said basically that 234 of the state's 254 counties have stock laws and that the remainder are either partially or wholly open range.
Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Hart Intercivic makes vote-flipping election machines. The majority of the directors of this firm come from HIG Capital. 11 of the 49 HIG partners were formerly employed at Bain Capital. 2 of that 11 are Romney bundlers, along with 1 former Bain employee and current HIG manager. 4 of the 11 were formerly employed at Booz Allen, maker of military voting machines and an American citizen data mining operation. Carlyle Group is an owner of Booz Allen.
HIG is the 11th largest donor to the Romney campaign ($338,000).
Scytl, Spanish company with ties to Booz Allen, will count 25% of the prez vote. Its US national corporate offices are at a house in Glen Allen, Virginia. Its sales office is a rent-an-office in Baltimore.
SaveAmerica
(5,342 posts)flamingdem
(39,319 posts)of some kind .. thanks for the synopsis
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)Voters in Ohio should demand the same thing.
OKNancy
(41,832 posts)I think we have all new machines. The old machines were good old workhorses. I'm sure some here will doubt them, but back in the 2004 primary there was a hand recount in the Democratic primary because Wes Clark and John Edwards were so close. The total figures with the machines vs the hand count were within 5 votes of each other.
Anyway, I'm not concerned about the Republicans cheating here in Oklahoma. It will be a win for them anyway.
citizen blues
(570 posts)WE NEED MASSIVE NUMBERS OF INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS ON THE GROUND NOVEMBER 6TH!!!!!
These fuckers have poised themselves to STEAL another election. The Wisconsin recall was a dry run and a proving ground.
Much of the international community viewed the Supreme Court decision in 2000 as a Right Wing Coup. Looks like they might be right unless we can get enough people to simply overwhelm the rigging.
At times I'm hopeful about this election, and at other times I'm really pessimistic. This election will determine whether we have a democracy or go the way of Michigan - another proving ground.
INdemo
(6,994 posts)speech..another example of Romney being in PA for fund raiser....and claiming he will win PA. With two pundits saying the race is within the margin of error..What? so are we being set up for a steal?..The same comments for Ohio and NC.
porphyrian
(18,530 posts)Samantha
(9,314 posts)I wonder if the Obama team knows about this?
Sam
CrispyQ
(36,500 posts)This is just one reason why people chortling that Obama's going to win should shut the fuck up.
nilram
(2,893 posts)KauaiK
(544 posts)allan01
(1,950 posts)busted. this whole thing stinks . i want to see doj action on this . if no doj action , i want all bush era appointees released.this should be kicked and kicked and kiced .
on edit : i also want to see house and senate investigations as well.
i want to see a truley standerised voteing methold in place like they have in iraq.
your thumb is inked . then you vote w your thumb.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)glinda
(14,807 posts)Seriously...we cannot wait.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)Counting the votes should be the job of the county clerks, not private corporations!
flamingdem
(39,319 posts)why why why is this allowed?
AzDar
(14,023 posts)beac
(9,992 posts)They really are going to do everything in their power to steal it, aren't they?
Liberalagogo
(1,770 posts)(Sorry about the mirroring)
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ruffburr
(1,190 posts)Their smugness throughout this election is the biggest clue of all, Myself and several others have said and said that we are all being made schmuck's of by the R's and they have the fix in no matter what, Maybe this will stop it, VOTE and keep your voting number!!!!!! Look out all , We have to fight these a--hole's to the end!!!!! DAMMIT!!
AllyCat
(16,215 posts)comes out in support of Dems. That lasts about 3 seconds, when I remember the damn voting machines. I think this is why RMoney isn't even trying to look like a good candidate. They are going to steal it. They know they will "win". And it will be by such epic proportions that few will be able to see it.
We saw this craziness in Wisconsin. How that happened is beyond explanation except for...they cheated.
CrispyQ
(36,500 posts)Maybe he shouldn't have picked a teabagger for veep.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Operation Northwoods
Snarkoleptic
(5,998 posts)for visibility
Dalai_1
(1,301 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Out of 49 partners and directors, 48 are men, and 47 are white. Eleven of these men, including H.I.G. Founder Tony Tamer, were formerly employed at Bain and Company, and two of those men, John P. Bolduc and Douglas Berman are Romney bundlers along with former Bain and H.I.G. manager Brian Shortsleeve.
Dalai_1
(1,301 posts)For so many republicans to have been negative about
rmoney's campaign( in the media) makes me think they are
all aware of this...even though the criticism was more
than warranted...
Thank you for posting this!
liberal N proud
(60,339 posts)This fucker owns the guys counting the votes.
fun n serious
(4,451 posts)VPStoltz
(1,295 posts)I believe Washington - if the writer is referring to Washington State - votes by mail.
Canada votes with paper, there is no muss, no fuss and the winner is announced the next morning (or as soon as it takes to count the paper ballots).
LiberalLovinLug
(14,176 posts)The winning party is announced that evening. Maybe a few close races too close to call and up for a re-count, but the main results are over within the day. All with hand-counted paper ballots.
Someone once argued that "well the US couldn't do that because there are 10 x the population so its too big a job and they'd be counting for weeks". That is just not logical. The US also has (roughly) 10 x the number of polling stations and 10 x the number of temporary workers available to fill spots so that point is moot.
demgrrrll
(3,590 posts)silvershadow
(10,336 posts)Blue Owl
(50,485 posts)Pakid
(478 posts)Once and for all . Now how do we do it?
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)demgrrrll
(3,590 posts)mecherosegarden
(745 posts)horseshoecrab
(944 posts)Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel
(3,273 posts)porphyrian
(18,530 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)This is extremely important.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)This is America, land of the free, don't worry, be happy, and move on
flamingdem
(39,319 posts)Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)It was chosen because of the three eVoting machine companies that provided quotes, Hart was the LEAST tied to one party.
So sad that all of the eVoting machine companies are all Republican-leaning.
rwork
(1,596 posts)get this to Rachael or Ed or Lawrence.
Samantha
(9,314 posts)I knew I would not sleep at all if I didn't.
Sam
Samantha.
They_Live
(3,239 posts)hue
(4,949 posts)It doesn't matter how stupid/ridiculous the Tea/Repub candidates are.
The 1% vote winning machine is in full force everywhere You look!!
LiberalLovinLug
(14,176 posts)...why this is NOT a high priority issue with Democratic lawmakers!
I just don't get the silence. After it was PROVEN that votes were changed, and that these machines CAN be hacked.
Its just damn puzzling and frustrating.
At the very least they should be working on a provision (maybe they are?) that the federal government has the right to the software of these machines. And the right to unannounced scrutiny. Bullocks about private company property! This is a national security issue if there ever was one.
tarheelsunc
(2,117 posts)How would people react if there was widespread knowledge of what is going on here? The Republicans are fully prepared to rig the election if they are not in a position to win it honestly (as they are not). Isn't it very strange that they want to win that badly that they willingly defraud the system?
Ninga
(8,277 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,580 posts)If you can.