Election Fraud 2012 ~ The Gov't Choosing Itself

[donnay]

Election Faud 2012 ~ The Gov't Choosing Itself

Interview with Bev Harris - Blackbox voting:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UU4jaDLnWB7iQD2jYT8qzCaw&v=5SK8yYTUI2A&feature=player_embedded

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About that Voting Machine Company Tied to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital…

By Brad Friedman (http://www.globalresearch.ca/about-that-voting-machine-company-tied-to-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital/5309536)

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.

Hart’s announcement of the deal describes H.I.G.’s role as as “co-investors”, though the financial services firm which brokered the deal described it in their own announcement as a full-fledged acquisition: “Hart Intercivic was acquired by HIG Capital late last week. The deal caps off a 2+ year relationship with Hart! Congrats to both Hart and the HIG team….its going to be a great partnership!”

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.]

When the story initially broke, I spoke about it on the radio with Fitrakis, but didn’t comment on it at The BRAD BLOG for a number of reasons. One being the time we’ve been spending, during the same period, consumed by the continuing breaking story of the RNC/Romney consultant Nathan Sproul and his companies at the center of the national GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal which we’ve been covering in detail since it first broke several weeks ago. Secondly, and not to downplay this story, because it’s a very good and important one, the fact is that, though the names of the corporate titans and companies are different, it is essentially the same story that we have been telling here, over and over again — and warning about with hair afire — at The BRAD BLOG for nearly a decade.

Moreover, I’ve been on the road all this week for a conference, with much less time online than usual. But since so many folks have picked up on the Romney/Bain/H.I.G./Hart Intercivic stories and have sent email and Twitter queries to me about it, allow me to very quickly share a few thoughts, on this, some of which I sent to a reporter who also raised this issue with me late this week…

First, my statement that I sent to the reporter about this story…

Once again, we’re reminded of the dangers of the privatization of our once-public electoral system. The company’s ties to Romney aren’t the only disturbing ones we’ve seen with similar companies over the years. The fact is, that nobody other than the public should have any sort of control of our elections. The proprietary voting systems now in use in all 50 states, whether owned by Romney associates, a George W. Bush associate (as with Diebold in 2004) or even a company tied to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez (as with Sequoia Voting Systems which blatantly lied about that tie to public officials, and the Canadian firm Dominion which purchased Sequoia and also immediately lied about the fact that Intellectual Property of their voting systems used all across the U.S. is still owned by the Venezuelan firm), continue to be a grave threat to American democracy and confidence in U.S. Elections.

One other point I should add, for now, particularly since I suspect folks from the Right are also likely to ask about it. There has been a false Rightwing story that’s been bubbling around this cycle, charging, inaccurately, that perennial Republican target George Soros owns or controls a company which will count 25% of U.S. votes in this year’s election. While the story, spread first by public airwaves clown and radio host Michael Savage and, naturally, Fox “News,” is completely false, the general concern at the heart of it is not. Indeed, it underscores, yet again, the very point we’ve been making on this topic here for years.

The company in question in the false Soros story is a Spanish-based firm named Scytl. While they do run vote-tabulation machines elsewhere, and are attempting to get into the (insane) Internet Voting game here in the U.S., their main involvement with U.S. elections at this time is via their recent acquisition of a company named SOE. That company runs websites which report election results for various public jurisdictions (municipalities, counties, states) on the Internet, but does not actually count any votes.

Yes, there are similar concerns about private corporations being in the business of reporting results in that way, as we saw back in 2004 when a rightwing company named SMARTech took over the reporting of questionable Presidential Election results in Ohio in the middle of the night as the country was waiting on the Buckeye State to determine who would be the next President of the United States. The media used the numbers reported on SMARTech’s servers as the actual results of the election, while the actual ballots in most of the Buckeye State were never allowed to be reviewed by the citizenry. So whatever the private Republican company reported, accurately or inaccurately, to be the results that night were generally regarded as the official results of the election.

That is virtually the same threat presented by the private, unoverseeable third-party corporations which now control the election machinery — voting and tabulation systems — itself in all 50 states in the union. Concerns about this matter are justifiable no matter which party you may or may not support.

Despite the Rightwing reports, Soros has no apparent control of the Scytl outfit, but it doesn’t matter. Other private corporate entities — unaccountable to the public — do. Either way, whether it’s Soros or entities tied to Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, Hugo Chavez or anybody else, the fact that we have allowed this complete corporatization of the machinery of our public elections, the very lifeblood of our democracy — the first and most important element of true self-governance — is, in and of itself, a continuing shame for what was once regarded as “the world’s greatest democracy.”

Someone ought to do something about it. It’s an outrage and a threat to our nation. But we’ve said as much many times before, even as very few in a position to actually do something about it, have bothered to pay much attention.

• For another take on the dangers of corporate control of American elections, see Ellen Theissen of VotersUnite.org’s 2008 report on the vendor controlled “undermining of U.S. Elections”.

[donnay]

America: Land of Shady Elections


By Carl Gibson (http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-land-of-shady-elections/5309591?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=america-land-of-shady-elections)

If a country proclaimed itself as the standard-bearer for democracy around the world, while a son of one of the country’s presidential candidates owned voting machines in a state known for swinging elections, would you take that country’s claims seriously? Would you believe that nation’s claims of love for democracy if a team of UN observers were sent to that nation’s polling locations on Election Day to monitor a hyper-partisan voter intimidation group?

We’ve all heard of the Golden Rule — no, not the “do unto others” law that Jesus spoke of in the New Testament — I’m referring to the more well-known “He who has the gold, makes the rules” one. In this case, the one with the gold is Tagg Romney, son of presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Tagg also recently made headlines after saying he wanted to “take a swing” at the President of the United States for calling his dad a liar.

Tagg is managing partner of Solamere Capital, which is a subsidiary of financial firms owned by Allen Stanford, a guy doing 110 years behind bars for an $8 billion Ponzi scheme. Solamere is tied to many private equity-owned firms, one of which is HIG Capital’s Hart Intercivic, a voting machine company whose products will be used in Ohio on Nov. 6. This is worse than when the owner of Diebold, who makes easily-hackable voting machines, promised to deliver Ohio to George W. Bush in 2004.

In a nutshell, the budding vulture capitalist Republican son of the vulture capitalist Republican running for president is part-owner of voting machines in a state that is a must-win for any Republican seeking the presidency. By any reasonable standard, this conflict of interest is cause for an investigation by the Federal Election Commission, the FBI, and is a national security concern for the Department of Homeland Security, all of which have a mandate to ensure that vote counts will not be tampered with on Election Day.

When you combine this troublesome detail with the many new unfair voter ID laws around the United States that are estimated to disenfranchise millions of Democratic-leaning voters on election day, this election could very well be a farce. Far-right politicians in Ohio, Virginia, Arizona and Florida have done their very best to suppress the Democratic vote by purging voter rolls, giving Latino voters wrong information on when to vote, and even adjusting early voting rules to favor Republican-leaning counties over Democratic-leaning counties.

The threat of a farce election is so great that lawyers for the ACLU, NAACP and other advocates have asked UN observers to come to the beacon of democracy, the United States, and monitor our elections. This is in response to a Houston-based group called True The Vote that trains thousands of volunteers in a pledge to stop “voter fraud,” largely through aggressive intimidation tactics. True The Vote’s strategy is basically to give copies of voter rolls to poll-watchers, and encourage them to relentlessly question election officials when someone comes into a polling location whom they don’t think should be there. While partisan groups like True The Vote are crying “voter fraud” as their excuse to make it harder for students, seniors, people of color, poor people and other traditionally left-leaning constituencies to go vote, the only acts of voter fraud that actually occur are being committed by the far-right.

We need to be just as aggressive in demanding accountability for the crooks who are trying to rig this election in their favor as often as possible, before we’re stuck with an illegitimate presidency and arguing over a few hundred votes in rigged courts.

[donnay]

Guilford Co. voters say ballot cast for Romney came up Obama on machine
http://myfox8.com/2012/10/23/guilford-county-voters-say-they-voted-for-the-wrong-candidate/

GREENSBORO, N.C. –The presidential election is just around the corner and voting issues have already become a problem in Guilford County.

On Monday, several voters complained that their electronic ballot machine cast the wrong vote. All the complaints were made by people who voted at the Bur-Mil Park polling location.

One of the voters, Sher Coromalis, says she cast her ballot for Governor Mitt Romney, but every time she entered her vote the machine defaulted to President Obama.

“I was so upset that this could happen,” said Coromalis.

Guilford County Board of Elections Director George Gilbert says the problem arises every election. It can be resolved after the machine is re-calibrated by poll workers.

“It’s not a conspiracy it’s just a machine that needs to be corrected,” Gilbert said.

After the third try, Coromalis says she was able to get her vote counted for Gov. Romney but was still annoyed.

“I should have just mailed it in,” Coromalis said.

Marie Haydock, who also voted at the Bur-Mil Park polling location, had the same problem.

“The frustration is… every vote counts,” said Haydock.

Elections officials say the machines have been fixed as of Tuesday, and no problems have been reported since.

Early voting ends November 3.

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More voter fraud...

http://news.yahoo.com/u-election-nears-efforts-intensify-misinform-pressure-voters-051420119.html

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@45:39 mark Interview with investigative journalist Greg Palast


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcgD84Ofsck

[donnay]

~Bump~

[HOLLYWOOD]

Election fraud via the electronic voting machines worked for Harry Reid stealing the US Senate election. Reid won 2 counties... almost all the fraud was in Clark county. They can commit their fraud where there's a high concentration of votes.

Another reason big partisan government are the criminal fraudsters.

http://theintelhub.com/2010/11/03/harry-reid-steals-nevada-wins-amid-fraud/


By Alex Thomas
Nov 3, 2010
http://theintelhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/57279197-300x210.jpg (http://theintelhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/57279197.jpg)
(Jae C. Hong / Los Angeles Times)

Sen. Harry Reid has won reelection in a tightly contested battle with Sharron Angle. Angle, a strong supporter of the Constitution and small government, appears to have lost despite recent polling (http://sharronangle.com/news/2010-10-12/fox-news-polls-gop-sees-senate-chances-improve) that had her up by as much as 3 points.
Reports of fraud and intimidation have circulated for weeks, with early voters complaining of rigged voting machines throughout Clark County.
Residents of Clark County Nevada have reported (http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/25511115/detail.html) that upon attempting to vote for Angle they found that Reid’s name had already been checked. This is not surprising as widespread voting fraud has been reported since the inception of the fraudulent electronic voting machines.
Washington Examiner (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Voting-machines-in-Clark-County-Nevada-automatically-checking-Harry-Reids-name-Voting-machine-technicians-are-members-of-SEIU-105815608.html)
Clark County is where three quarters of Nevada’s residents and live and where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s son Rory is a county commissioner. Rory is also a Democratic candidate for governor.
Since early voting started, there have been credible reports that voting machines in Clark County, Nevada are automatically checking Harry Reid’s name on the ballot (http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/25511115/detail.html).



Electronic voter fraud has been heavily documented by numerous investigations including a report in Truthout (http://www.truth-out.org/hacking-harry-reid-or-sharrons-angle64548) by Brad Friedman:
Sharron Angle should start filing the lawsuits right now. Then again, so should Harry Reid. However, it might be a bit more difficult politically for the Senate majority leader, given the undeserved support Reid has shown in the past for Nevada’s 100 percent unverifiable, error-prone, hackable, illegally-certified, electronic voting systems the state forces all voters to use at the polling place.
Given that the Angle/Reid contest in Nevada is likely to be among the closest – and most closely-watched – races for the US Senate this November 2, both parties would be wise to get to court and file for an order to ensure all of the hard drives, flash memory chips and memory cartridges to be used in their electronic voting machines during both early voting and on Election Day are securely retained for 22 months after the election.
The federal law requiring as much, Retention of Voting Documentation (http://www.uselections.com/select_fed.htm#8) (42 USC. 1974 through 1974e), has, however, never been followed in any state to my knowledge, at least in regard to the sensitive memory cards and hard drives from electronic voting systems. Those devices hold both ballot programming and the way the computers have recorded – accurately or not – the way voters have voted. They might also hold the only evidence of any system malfunction or malfeasance. Nonetheless, officials routinely scrub those materials not long after the polls have closed. Key evidence – perhaps the only actual evidence – of how voters had hoped to vote and of any obstruction to that intent, is thereby lost forever.
The voting machine still used across the Silver State – the horrible, hackable, failure-prone Sequoia AVC Edge touch-screen voting machines with VeriVote “paper trail” printer add-on – has a storied history (http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=39). There is also a recent history of very close elections in Nevada. Consequently, both candidates would be wise to bring on experienced Election Integrity experts to advise them in what can and will go wrong with those voting systems this year.
Unfortunately, while Reid seems to have long been in denial about the unverifiability and outright failure of the systems used in his state, Angle has likely been duped into buying into her own party’s propaganda about “voter fraud,” when the real problem is election fraud … or just plain failure.