Ohio: Romney's Allies Just Bought the Election

[Fearless]

Late last month, Gerry Bello and Bob Fitrakis at FreePress.org broke the story of the Mitt Romney/Bain Capital investment team involved in H.I.G. Capital which, in July of 2011, completed a "strategic investment" to take over a fair share of the Austin-based e-voting machine company Hart Intercivic.

"Several tanker trucks full of political ink have been spilled on Mitt Romney's tenure as a vulture capitalist at Bain Capital," Bello and Fitrakis wrote. "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 infamous former CEO of Diebold Wally O'Dell, who raised money for Bush while his company supplied voting machines and election management software in the 2004 election."

Lee Fang at The Nation recently confirmed the FreePress reporting in a story of his own on the "crony capitalism" of Tagg Romney, whose father's money and high-profile connections present a number of troubling corporate conflicts of interest should Mitt Romney become President. The Daily Dolt also followed up with a very well-documented article on the H.I.G. group, their connections to Bain, and their takeover of Hart Intercivic...

Also this week, in a video that has gone a bit viral, The David Pakman Show expressed understandable concerns about Romney's close business partners having this type of corporate control over a large e-voting company whose, extremely vulnerable and insecure [PDF] --- and often 100% unverifiable --- voting and tabulation systems are now used, according to VerifiedVoting.org's database, in all or parts of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. [Pakman's video is embedded below.]

http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=38

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Fun huh. Romney's supporters buy Ohio's e-voting machine company. You know. Unprovable e-voting. No paper trail. No proof.

[phleshdef]

1. The voting machines I use here in my voting location in Columbus leaves a paper trail.

I don't know what every county in the state uses, but our machines print out a paper trail in real time.

[LeftofObama]

22. I'm in a county in northwest Ohio.

The machine I used printed a paper that said President: Barack Obama right there on the right hand side inside a little window. My voter number was 4A. When the clerk gave me my plastic card to put in the machine he told me to look at the top of the screen and make sure 4A was located on the top center of the page. It was. So yeah, there is a paper trail.

[lebkuchen]

24. What's your sense of the direction OH will take on election day?

Do people still use bumper stickers, yard signs, etc?

[we can do it]

27. Signs and bumper stickers about even for both candidates around Akron

I've been out canvassing nearly every and that's what I see. I also see Obama supporters pretty excited and rMoney's pretty nasty and rude.

[LeftofObama]

32. I didn't see a Robme yard sign or bumper sticker

for a long time. Now, they seem to be everywhere. I would say it's about even Obama/Robme. Like the other poster said, the Robme supporters are mean, nasty, and rude. You can pretty much tell who they are just by listening to them.

My personal impression is that the major cities in Ohio will give the election to President Obama.

[Maeve]

40. I believe there was a money dump into Ohio by Rmoney people

Also, most of the yards for him have several signs here in central Ohio vs one sign (or maybe two) per yard Obama.

And I agree on how the vote will go.

[nobunnyclue]

36. I vote in Cuyahoga County...

and we used to have machines like that for one election. There was a receipt that printed and stayed in the machine, but there was a window where you could watch it print your choice. However, if I understand, it was only for auditing the accuracy of the electronic software. I remember the supervisors had to keep going over and using their administrator pass-cards to get the machines to work. They were touchscreen and it took people a long time to vote -- I think because it was much slower to read all the ballot initiatives on the screen, and because there were only half-dozen machines.

Those machines were only here for one election, then they replaced them with a "fill the bubble" and scan system. It digests the ballot and then gives you an alert if you under voted or over voted (picked too many candidates, not voted too many times.) I think it may make a paper trail internally, in case something happens to the software and the electronic records are lost, but that's just something I heard once and don't know if it's true or b.s.

In the last couple of elections with those scanner machines, there was virtually no wait at my polling place. They set up about 30 stalls for people to fill the bubbles in, and then the scanning takes about 10 seconds.

No matter how rich these Bain guys are, they are money men, not loyal lieutenants like the people who were attached to "dubbya's" good-ol-boy network. IMHO they are not the threat. The "send Obama back to Africa" zealots who have joined the Romney throng, and many of whom are polling volunteers, those are the folks who need to be watched like hawks, because their ends-justify-the-means mentality is far more short sighted than the Bain guys who have a lot to lose personally if they get caught.

[msongs]

2. too bad democrats have done little to nothing about e-voting machines issues. oh well nt

[tblue37]

6. I suspect that some powerful and not very liberal Democrats have made a deal

not to squawk about the electronic cheating as long as they are protected by those machines from facing viable primary challenges.

[elleng]

8. or it may be some other defect in Democrats and Democratic office-holders

that keeps us from ever seriously challenging repug misbehavior. I suspect it is widespread, and we are too lazy or something to go after it.

If it happens agan, I'll leave for Canada.

[2pooped2pop]

25. I agree

It's very strange that no one wants to cover this, talk about this or apparently change this.

They either have made a pact like you suggest or there is something else being held over their heads to keep them silent.

[elleng]

3. No sleep tonight.

Rover: Just flip the switch.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

4. We don't use touch screen in Oklahoma

Its strictly optical scanning machines on paper ballots. The ballot has a tear off tab that you take with you that has a number corresponding to the ballot you voted with.

In that respect the author is wrong. I can't speak for other states, however.

[HubertHeaver]

10. Any time you let a machine do your counting is like letting a magician deal your cards.

You don't see the sleight-of-hand trickery that shows you the winner. Do you trust your programmer? By the way, who is your programmer?

[Floyd_Gondolli]

13. Not buying it

A system that allows the voter to take a record with them that has the number of the ballot they used is a pretty secure system and would be easily to challenge and verify if I thought there was an issue. This is the definition of a paper trail.

Now I'm not sure what exactly would satisfy your particular standard, but I'm satisfied with our system. It's ancient technology but we like it. I'm glad the state is too cheap to pay for the whiz bang machines that seem to be the cause of much of the problems.

And I'll say it again: the author is wrong. We don't use e-voting machines here.

And that fact begs the question, what else is the author wrong about?

[HubertHeaver]

14. I would prefer the ballots be hand-counted in public. Trash the optical scanners.

If you insist on using the scanners, hand-count first. Use the scanner as a cross-check. Discrepancies would trigger a hand-recount.
Machines are not trustworthy.


If you carry off a stub that is traceable to your ballot, you do not have a secret ballot. That is, your ballot is traceable to you.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

31. What are you doing to help Obama win?

Other than indulging your paranoid fantasies. Counting votes the way you would have it takes us back to the 1700s and leaves room for plenty of potential for problems.

Either participate in the process or don't, but you are in no way helping Obama with this garbage.

[HubertHeaver]

33. Don't know much about computers, do you?

Your insults are noted.

[DURHAM D]

38. Don't different counties use different methods? nt

[left on green only]

15. Where I live in rural California, they still use the paper method of voting,....

....complete with hanging chads and all. But that doesn't eliminate the problem of election fraud for me. The thing that I contend with here is not having my ballot counted at all, like the ballots of everyone else are.

People here can tell by looking at me that I am one of the few people living here who are not right wing, red neck, nazis. It's easy for them to tell that my father and mother were not related to each other before marriage, and because of that, my ballot is usually subject to a slight of hand, whereby instead of putting it directly into the box, the election worker will lay it along side of the box. It is not until I stand there and refuse to leave that they will actually deposit my ballot into the box.

But it is easier for me to make them act with honesty in a social setting like a polling place, where their behavior can be called out so that everyone else who is present in the room can see it, than it is for me to mail in an absentee ballot. The reason for that is because there is no telling what will happen to my ballot if it is contained inside of an envelope that some "unknown" person who is probably of a different political persuasion than I, opens in secret while they are alone in an enclosed room. In that case, there is no telling what will happen to anyone's ballot, irregardless of where in the USA they live.


edit to eliminate extra word.

[nebenaube]

18. Well this ex-wisconsin voter

Will tell you that the optical scans did not validate on the recount of the Walker recall.

[tonya_okla]

21. Where in Oklahoma do you live Floyd

I live in Oklahoma and have never been given a ballot that has a tear off tab.

[WCGreen]

5. A good percentage of voters are opting to use the absentee ballot

which is a paper trail.

The last election I worked on was a city wide election in 2011. In that election about 35% of the people requested an absentee ballot.

[tblue37]

7. I wonder whether that is because so many people simply do not trust thosed damned machines

--or the Republicans who control them. Certainly the absentee vote numbers have skyrocketed this year.

[ReasonableToo]

9. People in suppression areas should be wary of absentee ballots...

...Rove's illegal caging tactics can render absentee ballots useless.

A soldier who was proud to vote for Candidate Obama was shocked to discover that his absentee ballot was protested and not counted in '08.

Rove sends mail to the military with "do not forward" stamped on it. When the mail is returned, he uses it to protest absentee ballot.

He targets the military and students.

Make sure you are still registered!

[HubertHeaver]

11. Which is why the mis-direction scam in Florida in 2000.

The late absentee military votes that shouldn't have been counted were the story, not the caged military votes that should have been counted.

[WCGreen]

16. At some point you have to have faith in the system....

Or just drop out.

Look, people have been doing nasty stuff to people ever since we found the ability to organize and in to governable population groups.

The best way to combat this stuff is to get involved, like a lot of people on this board have done...

[Grown2Hate]

20. ^^^ Fucking THIS. SO much this, it's not even funny. NT

[demgrrrll]

12. I thought that I read that the machines owned by by Taggart are only in two counties at most

in Ohio. Can someone check this out. I remember a similar hair on fire thread at another site with similar information which was supplemented by the information about there being only two counties in Ohio with the suspect machines.

[Maraya1969]

17. Every poll over at Real Clear Politics on the first page, including Fox has Obama in the lead.

and the second page, Gravis Marketing has Romney up by 1 and ARG has him up by 1. All others in the presidential poll go to Obama. It is deep blue in Nate Silver's blog under the presidential forecast. If it flips it is going to be too apparent. If Romney wins Ohio there will be hell to pay.

[nebenaube]

19. Yeah, right...

And Bush won Ohio... despite the evidence.

[AverageJoe90]

23. IMHO, even more so for Virginia and Iowa!

IMHO, there's no way in hell Romney could be ahead in Virginia.

[2pooped2pop]

26. there will be no hell. They won't even cover it.

No politician will look at it. They seem to want it rigged. Figure that.

[Baitball Blogger]

28. Don't you agree, that's why daily tallys and exit polls are necessry?

[CitizenLeft]

29. in Cuyahoga county OH

I early voted on Wed, had to go to downtown Cleveland at the Board of Elections to do it, only place you can early vote here. We used the old-fashioned paper ballot that requires a pen to black out an oval. Put it in an envelope, and into a blue ballot box. I was surprised, had no idea this would be the method, since we used e-voting machines in both 2008 and 2010 (in 2004, it was those punch-out chads with a stylus). I think tabulating machines count the ballots?

There's another tool people may not be aware of. In 2010, I went to the election board's website and I was able to see exactly how I voted in that election. That was reassuring, but I'm not sure how relevant that is in insuring that every vote is counted and included in the totals.

Bottom line, having Kasich as our gov'r and Husted SoS makes me freakin' nervous, especially in light of what happened here in 2004.

[Kteachums]

30. Some reporter should ask Romney this question; "Why did he buy voting machines?"

[Maraya1969]

35. OHHHHH good one! I'll check around and find out how to submit questions. Hope others do the same.

[davidpdx]

34. Oregon is vote by mail

All ballots are paper. In addition, we have a D SOS.

http://verifiedvoting.org/

This site says Curry County has machines from that company, but the number of voters would not be significant enough to change the outcome of presidential election:

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/searched.php?ec=allall&state=OR

Frankly I'm worried about Ohio, Florida, PA, and Virginia most.

[KarenElissa]

37. A song for the cause: "See Mitt Run"

A song for the cause -- it's called "See Mitt Run"

[brooklynite]

39. Right...No Democrat could POSSIBLY win in such circumstances...

except for Ted Strickland (2006), Sherrod Brown (2006), Zack Space (2006, 2008), Steve Driehaus (2008), Charlie Wilson (2006, 2008)....

[Vidar]

41. And still, Obama & Holder do nothing.