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Romney buys electronic voting machines in Ohio and other swing states

Started by Sir Perceval of Daventry, October 21, 2012, 08:34:04 AM

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Sir Perceval of Daventry

http://www.allvoices...ital-investment
QuoteTagg 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.

KatieHal

Your link is busted, Perceval.

Since politics are a topic that can get nasty very quickly, I'm going to remind people up-front to keep any discussion of politics (or other potentially controversial and divisive topics) civil. Debate and discuss as much as you like, but stay respectful of each other and of opinions that are different from your own.

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wilco64256

As much as I take issue with problematic claims or fuzzy math from either side, I'm not sure that the ownership of the voting machines themselves means much of anything. They have to be owned by somebody somewhere, and odds are good whoever actually owns the machines favors one candidate over the other. I doubt that "owning" a machine is anywhere near enough to be able to make that machine kick out certain results or anything like that.
Weldon Hathaway

Enchantermon

You're probably right. And Romney's not exactly on the poor end of the scale; his money is going to be invested in a lot of places, and he doesn't have control over the involvement that companies have with each other.

The audio recording is intriguing, but I would like to hear it for myself. The e-mails from employers to employees I would also like to read to make my own decisions, but I'll bet they're worded fairly ambiguously. I would also bet that employers supporting Obama may be writing the same types of ambiguous e-mails to their employees.

This is why I dislike the media. It seems like no one is interested in unbiased reporting anymore. This article raises questions about Romney's investments and campaign strategies, which is fine, but it's so obviously slanted against him that it's very hard to take it seriously. Same with the other side; articles supporting Romney have been written that are so obviously slanted against Obama that it's hard to believe them.

Worst of all, it's terrible that we have this doubt about our media at all, but unfortunately, it's proven to not always be trustworthy.
So what if I am, huh? Anyways, I work better when I'm drunk. It makes me fearless! If I see a bad guy, I'll just point my sword at him and saaaaaaaaaay, "Hey! Bad guy! You're not s'posed to be here! Go home or I'll stick you with my sword 'til you go, 'Ouch! I'm dead!' Ah-ha-ha!" Ha-ha. *hic* See? Ain't no one gonna be messin' wit' ol', Benny!

Deloria

Quote from: Enchantermon on October 21, 2012, 03:46:13 PM
The e-mails from employers to employees I would also like to read to make my own decisions, but I'll bet they're worded fairly ambiguously.
Hint: It's more fun if the codewords you use are really politically incorrect. :P

"I'll make a salad with dressing" can become "I'll drown it all in the tears of babies" :D
 
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crayauchtin

Quote from: Deloria on October 21, 2012, 04:07:32 PM
Quote from: Enchantermon on October 21, 2012, 03:46:13 PM
The e-mails from employers to employees I would also like to read to make my own decisions, but I'll bet they're worded fairly ambiguously.
Hint: It's more fun if the codewords you use are really politically incorrect. :P

"I'll make a salad with dressing" can become "I'll drown it all in the tears of babies" :D
DELORIA! How did you figure out my code?!
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

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Blackthorne

I'm sorry, but ownership of those machines clearly represents a conflict of interest.


Bt
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wilco64256

I think at best it's a bit of a stretch, his family has an investment in a company that has an investment in a company that has an investment in 3/5 of the board of directors for a company that owns the machines currently. It's not even the company that actually makes or programs the machines, and it's not like he could walk in and claim ownership to one of them and take it home.
Weldon Hathaway

crayauchtin

I just reeeeally don't see how owning the machines could effect the election. The machines are still going to be inspected by an outside party like all voting machines are.
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

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writerlove

Quote from: Blackthorne on October 22, 2012, 01:35:14 PM
I'm sorry, but ownership of those machines clearly represents a conflict of interest.

Bt

I agree. And voting machines can be hacked easily. It makes me uneasy.

I agree about the media,too John. There's a lot of sensationalism fodder out there. And it irks me as an aspiring journalist because the public doesn't trust us as a whole because of a select few. But that's another rant for a another day.

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darthkiwi

After the fiasco with voting machines in the Bush vs Gore election - IIRC George Bush won over one state, and that state may have had faulty voting machines, which means he might have actually lost - I think it's vital that people take more notice of the place of voting machines in elections. If they can be hacked, or if they're not properly policed, the whole system falls flat.

Having said that, I'm surprised that this is the worst case of a potential President bending the rules to get into the Whitehouse. I mean, it's the most powerful job in the world. I'm surprised people aren't actually killing each other over it. They have in pretty much every other political system.

Oh, and this

Quoteoverall vagueness on women's rights

kinda makes me cringe...

Quote"I'll make a salad with dressing" can become "I'll drown it all in the tears of babies"

I like the idea of two societies with equally bizarre codewords getting their wires crossed. One agent walks up to another agent, mistaking it for one of their society, and says the code word: "The weather is nice today, but come autumn it will turn cold." In the other society's code, this means something totally different. And they keep talking at each other, telling the other to do increasingly bizarre things, and because both codes are so utterly comprehensive, they never say anything that can't be covered by the other's code. :P
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crayauchtin

Quote from: darthkiwi on October 27, 2012, 02:41:32 PM
After the fiasco with voting machines in the Bush vs Gore election - IIRC George Bush won over one state, and that state may have had faulty voting machines, which means he might have actually lost - I think it's vital that people take more notice of the place of voting machines in elections. If they can be hacked, or if they're not properly policed, the whole system falls flat.
It's THAT fiasco that has made the inspections on voting machines so much more stringent, which is why I don't think this is as big a deal as everyone is saying. They do have to be inspected.

Now, tell me Romney owns the company that does the inspection too and I'll be really worried. But until that proof comes out, I don't see why we need to try to undermine him with suspicions when it is so easy to undermine him with his actual policies.
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

We're roleplaying in the King's Quest world: come join in the fun!