Dear Martin,
Could a voting machine company with deep financial ties to the Romney family help Republicans steal the presidential election
in Ohio?
It could happen. If this year's presidential election comes down to the electoral votes in Ohio, the deciding votes could
be cast on electronic voting machines manufactured by Hart Intercivic.
A 2007 study conducted by Ohio's Secretary of State showed that Hart Intercivic's touch screen voting machines could be easily
corrupted. The New York Times reported:
At polling stations, teams working on the study were able to pick locks to access memory cards and use hand-held devices
to plug false vote counts into machines. At boards of election, they were able to introduce malignant software into servers.1
Hart Intercivic is majority owned by H.I.G. Capital which controls two of the five seats on the Hart Intercivic board. An
investment fund with deep ties to the Romney family and the Mitt Romney for president campaign, H.I.G. Capital was founded
by Tony Tamer, a major bundler for the Romney campaign, and it is one of the largest partners of Solamere Capital, an investment
fund founded by Tagg Romney and Spencer Zwick, Mitt Romney's chief fundraiser from the 2008 presidential campaign.2
This makes the Romney family part owner of the voting machine company, through its interest in H.I.G. Capital.
What's more, three other H.I.G. Capital directors are major fundraisers for the Romney campaign, and H.I.G. Capital is the
11th largest contributor to the Mitt Romney campaign.3 Two of the company's directors, Douglas Berman and Brian
Schwartz, were even in attendance at the Boca Raton fundraiser4 where Romney infamously declared:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what... who are dependent upon government, who
believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are
entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it... These are people who pay no income tax...[M]y job is is not
to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.5
And as if the ties between Tagg Romney's Solamere, Romney contributors
at H.I.G. Capital, and Hart Intercivic weren't astonishing
enough, two members of Hart Intercivic's 5-member board of directors
made direct contributions to the Romney campaign. That's
right. Directors of the company that makes touchscreen voting machines
that could decide the presidential election in Ohio,
have made contributions to the Mitt Romney for President campaign.
It is disturbing and dangerous that Hart Intercivic, the company that makes the machines that will count many of the votes
in Ohio on election night has deep financial ties to family members of Mitt Romney. And that its leadership has been actively
involved presidential campaign by donating and bundling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Mitt Romney. The fact that
these machines are easily corruptible touch screen voting machines makes matters even worse.
Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are locked in a tight election race which could very well be decided by Ohio's
18 electoral votes. We must take action now.
Thank you for all you do to protect the integrity of our Democracy.
1. Bob Driehaus, " Ohio Elections Official Calls
Machines Flawed," New York Times, December 15, 2007.
2. Rick Ungar, " Romney Family Investment Ties To
Voting Machine Company That Could Decide The Election Causing Concern," Forbes, October 20, 2012.
3. " Mitt Romney (R) Top Contributors." Open
Secrets, October 1, 2012.
4. Dave Gilson, Who Was at Romney's "47 Percent"
Fundraiser?, Mother Jones, Sept. 18, 2012.
5. MoJo News Team, " Full Transcript of the Mitt
Romney Secret Video," Mother Jones, September 19, 2012. |
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