MSNBC: Former election official: Tagg Romney’s stake in voting machine firm ‘doesn’t look good’

[ProfessionalLeftist]

Ed just tweeted about this. Went to the link and viola!

A financial interest held by Mitt Romney’s son in a voting machine company whose systems are being used in Ohio threatens public confidence in the election’s integrity, according to Jennifer Brunner, the state’s former top elections official.

“It doesn’t look good for a presidential candidate’s son to be an investor in a voting machine company,” Brunner told MSNBC.com. “That has to do with public trust in the process.”

Hart Intercivic supplies voting machines that will be used in Hamilton County, Ohio, one of the state’s most populous counties. In 2008, Barack Obama won the county with 209,000 votes—his third highest vote total among all Ohio’s 88 counties.

H.I.G. Capital, a large investment fund, is a “significant investor” in Hart Intercivic, according to an announcement put out last year by Hart. And H.I.G., in turn, is one of the largest partners, with nearly $10 billion of equity capital, of Solamere Capital, the investment fund founded and run by Tagg Romney (pictured), Mitt’s eldest son, The Nation recently reported*.

MORE...

http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/10/22/jennifer-brunner-tagg-romneys-stake-in-voting-machine-company-doesnt-look-good/

[malaise]

1. The Rmoneys might yet make the Bushies look like rank amateurs

and I always thought that would take some doing - WTF???

[Angry Dragon]

2. RFEE

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Nail head, even if the think is truly on the up and up

it leaves that air of conflict of interest in the air.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

7. Exactly. It's conflict of interest, regardless

Last edited Mon Oct 22, 2012, 08:38 PM - Edit history (1)

It truly "doesn't look good". People need to feel confident in their election outcomes and when a candidate's son holds financial interest in a voting machine company - it shouldn't be allowed to stand.

If this was Obama's kid - can you imagine the scandal? Obama would be immediately disqualified from the race for something like this. But since it's a Republican - oh...that's A-OK?

I don't think so.

[barbtries]

4. yeah

and it SMELLS even worse than it looks.

[elleng]

5. Good and would be nice if MSNBC would properly identify Jennifer Brunner

as former Ohio Secretary of State, not merely 'the state’s former top elections official.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Brunner

She was also instrumental in taking the Ohio 'early voting restrictions' to court.

[City Lights]

6. I hope Chuckles the Toad is paying attention.

He said concern over this was garbage.

[theinquisitivechad]

14. Love this, may I submit "Chuckling Toad"? n/t

[RobertEarl]

8. It must a good investment, right?

Lets see, who are Hart's customers?

I got it!!

The government is the customer. Instead of paying a bunch of people to hand count the votes, we, the people of the government, pay just a few companies to count our votes.

What a great investment. A solid customer base. Little to no oversight. Mistakes are not illegal and even if caught supplying a crummy product all is forgiven! Those government people are such pushovers.

[Sybildisobedience]

11. Excellent point

Well never know how much $ the Romneys made from the government they hate.

[Blue Owl]

9. This should be on every front page ahead of the Lance Armstrong story

Talk about cheating...

[monmouth]

10. So, what are they going to do about it? Just oooh and ahhhh? Get rid of them and get another

batch of machines in there..

[ProfessionalLeftist]

13. That's my take on it - require that all the Hart machines

be replaced with different ones.

[RobertEarl]

12. News about the biggest Voting machine company at link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014270685

A VP of ES&S gets caught with camera. And other facts about ES&S, the company that counts 50% of the vote.

[tavernier]

15. Isn't it odd that he would choose this particular investment?

I would think that a young republican billionaire would be more interested in ...

oh, ok. I get it.

Never mind.