Or are they owned by another one of those GOP-front "private corporations" counting our votes?

that owns stock in these voting machine companies. But who knows with Romneys. Doesn't matter how they win so they would cheat as quickly as they lie.

:/

So it might not be too late.

Who got busted for election fraud also had patches for the voting machines in Ohio remember?

This statement sounds simply unbelievable. Something has to be done about this horrible man!!

Still do not understand clearly why this didn't happen until now- don't get me wrong- I'm thrilled it made it to the Christian Science Monitor and that team on the ground with Bob Fitrakis are tremendous but I do which this was coming to light maybe-- even yesterday. Any day but tomorrow... We shall see what unfolds.

delayed? Just guessing

That a newspaper as respected as Christian Science Monitor is following this story.

It's also good that a legal red flag has been raised about the software, in the past this type of thing has fallen into the realm of
tinfoil hats.

Hopefully it's nothing, but I'm glad to see that attention is being paid.

and H.I.G. Capital is a romney-connected company. That's enough of a conflict of interest for me!

"H.I.G. Capital, on the other hand, which does control Hart InterCivic, has clear ties to the Romney campaign — another part of this conspiracy theory."


Get a load of this:


A private equity company run by fervent supporters of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney bought the third-largest voting machine company in the country last July, raising concerns about the appearance of impropriety, if not the possibility of impropriety itself.

Apprehension that Romney supporters could be literally buying votes has been burbling on left-wing blogs since Freepress.org, an alternative website based in Columbus, Ohio, reported late last month about H.I.G Capital's purchase of Hart Intercivic.

H.I.G. Capital is a Miami-based private equity fund that manages $8.5 billion in capital. Hart Intercivic is a company exclusively in the business of manufacturing and programming voting systems.

H.I.G. Capital's co-founder, Anthony Tamer, previously worked at Bain & Company, the global consulting giant where Romney was once CEO. Eight of the company's managing directors came from Bain as well. Tamer and his wife are major Romney donors, having each contributed $50,000 to the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future. Tamer has also donated $75,000 to the Romney Victory Fund.

Reference Links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/23/pro-romney-firm-voting-machines_n_2006697.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/romney-investment-in-voting-machines-2012-10

Folks, this is obviously a conflict of interest. Hart InterCivic machines are used in five states:

1. Ohio
2. Texas
3. Oklahoma
4. Colorado
5. Hawaii

Are you concerned yet? Do you STILL believe this is just a baseless conspiracy theory? Maybe you need to read a bit of Bob Fitrakis and Gerry Bello:

Why did the Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's office, in an end run around Ohio election law, have "experimental" software patches installed on vote counting tabulators in up to 39 Ohio counties? Voting rights activists are concerned that these uncertified and untested software patches may alter the election results.

During the 2004 presidential election, the Free Press reported that election officials observed technicians from the ES&S voting machine company and Triad computer maintenance company installing uncertified and untested software patches on voting machines in 44 Ohio counties prior to the election. Software patches are usually installed to "update" or change existing software. These software patch updates were considered suspect by election protection activists, in light of all the voting machine anomalies found during the 2004 election in Ohio.

The Free Press has learned that Election Systems and Solutions (ES&S) installed the software patches that will affect 4,041,056 registered voters, including those in metropolitan Columbus and Cleveland (click here for spread sheet from verifiedvoting.org).

A call to the Ohio Secretary of State's office concerning the software patches was not returned by publication deadline.

Reference Link:
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4766

---------------------
My Suggestions to Reduce the Actual Possibility of Vote Rigging (by anyone of any political bent):
We need to make the code for all of the electronic voting machines used in General Elections subject to audit..either at the state or federal level. Claiming "company trade secrets would be exposed, a baseless claim, thwarts this process, and further engenders suspicion of vote rigging. Canada has paper ballots, and counts them all in a single night. Each state could do this, and it could be monitored by both major political parties (for example). So, why is the World's alleged model of a Democratic Republic STILL resistant to doing just that? Stalin would be so proud of us. He REALLY would! Just remember, when preparation meets opportunity, things can happen...bad things....REALLY R-E-A-L-L-Y bad things.


Note to the rePIG stooges-paid posters/Democrat Posers (and you fucking know who you are!) reading this: You Lost the battle over the truth about rePIG vote rigging. It's been definitively proved to have occurred in 2004, and now it truly appears to be repeating. Get over it already.

or else wait till it's too late and it looks like sore winner or sore loser behaviour after the election,

It's time the Democratic party give the hardworking election activists (and the principle of HIDDEN software that governs our election) to give us a chance to change forever how our elections are managed.

I hope this hearing goes our way...

At least today the plot to cook the election is being reviewed and is history. Years ago this would have been a cheap TV plot and today it is something the stupid GOP morons think they can get away with to BUY AN ELECTION.

Hopefully all those involved with this evil plot will be in prison and become BOBO'S girl friend. Do not wend these cons to a white man prison but the best prison go enough for 99%.

Well then!

Well then.

With this software in place the election can be fixed as the vote totals come in throughout the day. One can change a little here and a little there and no one will know what happened. They can feed returns back to the voting location counters that is false. In the end Mitt Romney wins Ohio.

I bet Mitt goes to Ohio on election day as a cover to have his own vote counters on the ground to help steal the vote count. Yeah, he acts like it is a last minute rally but he has a office set up to fly his counters in to manipulate the totals.

Something stinks, really stinks, in Ohio!

(I Am A Computer Programmer)

The program changes are reported to be format changes to the message stream, to facilitate more rapid tabulation... not data changes, but format changes.

The accusations seem procedural, without any sort of foundation in any kind of discovered vote rigging.

Of course, maybe something nefarious will be found, but this looks more like a publicity stunt to me...

For the non programmer folks, the basic issue at play works like this:
1. Human calls and reports a tally.
(this can be hacked with faked phone calls)
or:
1. Machine calls and reports a tally.
(this can also be hacked with faked phone calls)

When there is data form conversion like this it opens more doors than you suggest.

The quote below is from the Monitor article and states the problem clearly:

The software is installed on the central vote-tabulation machines in the counties. It is designed to make the process of tabulating votes faster and more accurate. Previously, reports generated by counties' tabulation systems would have to be entered by hand. The new software formats the reports so they can be more easily uploaded into the secretary of state's election system, says Matt McClellan, a spokesman for the Ohio secretary of state's office.

If the software was not properly vetted, though, it could be vulnerable to tampering, the suit alleges. In an affadavit supporting the filing, James March, an expert witness on voting machines, testifies that the 28-page contract between the state and the firm that sells the software describes in detail the requirements for the software – showing that a third-party could gain access to county vote totals.

Election Systems & Software, Inc. "installed a 'back door' into such hardware and software that enables persons who are not under the supervision and control of defendant Husted, and who are not under the supervision and control of Ohio’s boards of elections, to access the recording and tabulation of votes using facilities not under the control of defendant Husted or Ohio’s boards of elections," the federal complaint maintains.

Besides, what is the alternative? To cancel elections in Ohio?

using the software that has already been certified. If that takes an extra 10 minutes or two hours to collate the results tonight, so be it.

Much of the reporting about today's lawsuit seems to imply the software would be installed on Hart Intercivic devices.

But BradBlog's post indicates the software is a patch to ESS machines.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9651

Does anybody know the details here?

When a partisan installs "experimental" software, refusing to make the source available for scrutiny, and sneaks it in at the last minute, only a fool would give him any benefit of the doubt.

You didn't cite any basis for your judgment that this change was limited to formatting a message. Did your programming career include the concept of testing and code walkthroughs?

On the face of it, the claim about message efficiency is preposterous. If the prior format did not work, then why is it still used in half of the counties? Why was it so important to install this software only in half of the counties? Has anybody identified which counties are affected?

Of course, software that can read and write to the main tabulation database can flip votes in either a Republican-leaning or a Democratic-leaning county, so I wouldn't necessarily expect to see a particular pattern to the counties. The SoS probably picked counties where he figures the people won't ask any questions.

these thumbnails they used to install the patches should be published now for evaluation. Actully all the code that is in the machines, and all code in the servers is public property right. Maybe they will say it's like propitiatory information; like fracking fluids. Not even your Doctor can tell you what poisoned you.

We should start a site that has a spread sheet to "balance the Books" from independent citizen based sources. Do our own count of our voting account's.

Just like corporation's like GE & BP & F.U , Balance all their Income.
All in the open online

snip: There’s an “an imminent risk that persons who are not under the supervision and control of defendant Husted” or the county boards of election may exploit the alleged breach to “alter the recording and tabulation of votes cast,” Fitrakis said in the court filings yesterday.

Persons not under Husted's control may "exploit the breach... to alter votes" is Fitrakis' concern. But how about persons who ARE under Husted's control? Can someone explain why this is?

This is ridiculous. America ought to be capable of running elections in a professional manner that is a model for the world in how democracy should function. Instead, in some states, the right to vote becomes a test of one's endurance to stand in lines for hours and hours. And time after time, the ominous threat is present that in key states like Florida and Ohio, voters will be given misinformation, votes will be thrown out or not counted, or machines manipulated. How/why do we continue to allow this to happen?

are subject to fraud. If they weren't, they wouldn't be in use. They are however, operating as intended.

It is nearly identical to the arguments made against the recount in Florida in 2000 and (oooops) Ohio in 2004.

The missing logic which is in the law is that the goal is the ACCURATE and COMPLETE count of the votes. The law requires it be done, by hand if necessary.

If it were logical they would be insisting on a careful and accurate count of any votes recorded and demanding the resources to accomplish it, not making excuses why it can't be done. They have already conceded that errors will be allowed to occur.

how "experimental software" was ever allowed to be exempted from state rules governing accountability/certification.
Experimental? No thank you!!

Haven't heard anything about it from the mainstream media.