Romney family buys voting machines through Bain Capital investment

[Zboy]

Romney family buys voting machines through Bain Capital investment

Tagg Romney, the son of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has purchased electronic voting machines that will be used in the 2012 elections in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, Washington and Colorado.

"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," according to independent journalist Brad Friedman.

But Friedman is not the only one to discover the connection between the Romney family, Bain Capital, and ownership of voting machines.

Truth out reports:
"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.

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."

Both The Nation and New York Times confirm the connection between the Romney family, Solamere and the Bain Capital investment in the voting machine company, Hart Intercivic, whose board of directors serve H.I.G. Capital.

"Mitt Romney, his wife Ann Romney, and their son Tagg Romney are also invested in H.I.G. Capital, as is Mitt's brother G. Scott Romney.

The investment comes in part through the privately held family equity firm called Solamere, which bears the name of the posh Utah ski community where the Romney family retreats to slide down the slopes." Truth out added.

There are also political connections between Solamere and the Romney's. "Matt Blunt, the former Missouri governor who backed Mr. Romney in 2008, is a senior adviser to Solamere, as is Mitt Romney’s brother, Scott, a lawyer," according to the New York Times.

Voter ID and voter fraud have been a top issues in the 2012 race, as have claims of Republican voter suppression. Mr. Romney's campaign has also been the subject of controversy over misleading ads, false claims, sketchy math on his tax plan, and overall vagueness on women's rights and other hot button issues.

Raising further questions of legitimacy in the Romney campaign is an audio recording recently made public, where Mitt Romney is heard asking independent business owners to apply pressure to their employees to influence their votes. What has also been made public are the emails those employers have sent to their employees with an implied threat that if they don't vote for Romney they may lose their jobs.

What it all says is that Mitt Romney, with the help of his family and Bain Capital connections, is more than willing to try to take the White House through illegitimate and highly unethical, if not specifically illegal means.
With each passing day, the character and campaign methods of Mitt Romney cast an ever-darker shadow over free and fair American elections.

Yet there is an irony in the Romney campaign that cannot be ignored. For all the noise the right-wing has made in questioning the legitimacy of Obama's presidency, there have been so many questionable efforts made to help put Romney in the White House, if he wins, there should be great dispute over whether his election could ever be called genuinely illegitimate.

The nagging question is why, if Mr. Romney truly has the qualities that American voters want in their president, does he have to go to such great and questionable lengths to try to win the election.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed...tal-investment


..........

Shouldn't this fall under "conflict of interest"?

[pouhe]

Couldn't care less. If no one invests in these things I'm not sure they would continue to get made.

[ROXTXIA]

Originally Posted by pouhe Couldn't care less. If no one invests in these things I'm not sure they would continue to get made.

You should care (unless you're a big Romney fan, I guess).

Greg Palast wrote very well about what has been perpetrated in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections ("The Best Democracy money Can Buy").

I'll puke if it happens again. It's one thing to watch your candidate lose, but to have it happen by cheating, and no one does anything about it...

[white lightning]

Originally Posted by pouhe Couldn't care less.

Really? The family of a candidate buys the machines that keep track of the votes and you couldn't care less?

[ChievousFTFace]

Originally Posted by pouhe Couldn't care less. If no one invests in these things I'm not sure they would continue to get made.

You are absolutely Aladeen!!!

[jocar]

Why stop at lying and voter suppression when rigging machines is where the real money's at?

[JuanValdez]

Originally Posted by pouhe Couldn't care less. If no one invests in these things I'm not sure they would continue to get made.

I'm not seeing the big deal either. Don't we have agencies to make sure the machines aren't working in a fraudulent manner? It could simply be that since the Romney family business is politics, they have a pretty good idea about the sort of return on investment they can get on a voting machine company.

[pouhe]

Originally Posted by ROXTXIA You should care (unless you're a big Romney fan, I guess). Greg Palast wrote very well about what has been perpetrated in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections ("The Best Democracy money Can Buy"). I'll puke if it happens again. It's one thing to watch your candidate lose, but to have it happen by cheating, and no one does anything about it...

So elections were rigged in 2000 and 2004, but not '96 or '08? I don't have to be a Romney fan to understand the motives for claiming voter fraud.

[B-Bob]

Originally Posted by JuanValdez I'm not seeing the big deal either. Don't we have agencies to make sure the machines aren't working in a fraudulent manner? It could simply be that since the Romney family business is politics, they have a pretty good idea about the sort of return on investment they can get on a voting machine company.

With a huge array of options for investments though, just the *appearance* of buying voting machines in Ohio is pretty horrible. Not that anyone will notice this story anyway, but still. It's either bad judgment, or things are much shadier than we like to believe. It's probably the former.

[ROXTXIA]

Originally Posted by pouhe So elections were rigged in 2000 and 2004, but not '96 or '08? I don't have to be a Romney fan to understand the motives for claiming voter fraud.

The elections need to be pretty close for them to even bother. Not worth the risk, even if the media won't touch the story. '96 and '08 were fairly comfortable election margin-of-victories.

"Voter fraud"? Let's go ahead and call it rigging elections. And yes, the companies behind these things always favor the Republican outcome.

I can concede Kennedy might have beaten Nixon if not for some potential shenanigans in Chicago. But the closest we had recently was the ACORN b.s., which is not actual vote rigging. You can inflate voter enrollment numbers, but "Mickey Mouse" et al couldn't turn up to vote.

Go do some actual reading, please, such as the book I mentioned. The author can't even work as a journalist in this country because our corporate media won't hire him.

[sammy]

Sigh not this cheating crap again. I still have nightmares about Dubya and Florida.

[pouhe]

Originally Posted by ROXTXIA The elections need to be pretty close for them to even bother. Not worth the risk, even if the media won't touch the story. '96 and '08 were fairly comfortable election margin-of-victories. "Voter fraud"? Let's go ahead and call it rigging elections. And yes, the companies behind these things always favor the Republican outcome. I can concede Kennedy might have beaten Nixon if not for some potential shenanigans in Chicago. But the closest we had recently was the ACORN b.s., which is not actual vote rigging. You can inflate voter enrollment numbers, but "Mickey Mouse" et al couldn't turn up to vote. Go do some actual reading, please, such as the book I mentioned. The author can't even work as a journalist in this country because our corporate media won't hire him.

So the elections need to be close for there to be incentive to rig the machines? And it's only relevant if the Presidential election is close, not the hundreds or thousands of state or local elections on the ballot as well? And of course the elections can only be rigged by voting machines and voting machine companies don't take investment capital from Democrats? This is ex post facto crap and if this guy can't work in the most media saturated country on the planet it's because he's full of it.

[Air Langhi]

Maybe it doesn't mean anything,but with billions being spent and millions of eyes on you it just looks like a bad decision.

[Codman]

It would be nice if Obama somehow brought this up during the next debate. I'm sure he could somehow transition it into a discussion about domestic terrorism.

[David Stern]

Regardless of whether or not you believe cheating is taking place there absolutely should be no connections between a candidate running for president and ownership of voting machines. Ask any auditor it's called the separation of responsibilities

[JD88]

Originally Posted by Codman It would be nice if Obama somehow brought this up during the next debate. I'm sure he could somehow transition it into a discussion about domestic terrorism.

'Romney is buying voting machines, and I, I am out killing Bin Laden. I say again, I killed Bin Laden.'

[David Stern]

Originally Posted by JD88 'Romney is buying voting machines, and I, I am out killing Bin Laden. I say again, I killed Bin Laden.'

I support this.

[Zboy]

Just today....

Ohio county elections director resigns, citing stress of coming presidential election

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...a1e_story.html

[ROXTXIA]

Originally Posted by pouhe So the elections need to be close for there to be incentive to rig the machines? And it's only relevant if the Presidential election is close, not the hundreds or thousands of state or local elections on the ballot as well? And of course the elections can only be rigged by voting machines and voting machine companies don't take investment capital from Democrats? This is ex post facto crap and if this guy can't work in the most media saturated country on the planet it's because he's full of it.

I didn't mention state or local elections, did I? I'm not going to write down everything about everything, especially since you're obviously on one side of the fence (I'll bet you'll say no, "I'm an Independent"---so many Republicans say it).

Statewide elections have been even worse. Voting machines in this or that county have sometimes shown negative vote counts for candidates.

The point is, these machines are easily rigged, and they often are.

Watch this, you might be enlightened.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...58774822130737

[redlawn]

Originally Posted by JuanValdez I'm not seeing the big deal either. Don't we have agencies to make sure the machines aren't working in a fraudulent manner?

You should care. The security vulnerabilities and lack of best practices in voting machines from the 2004 election were well-documented. As just an example, here's just one article:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/01/diebold_hack/

Why didn't Diebold use best practices to implement its voting machines? Who knows. What we do know, however, is that e-voting is actually well studied by researchers at universities.