Will Bain-Linked E-Voting Machines Give Romney the White House?

By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman,
The Free Press

October 16, 2012--Hart's machines are infamous for mechanical failures, glitches, counting errors and other timely problems.

Hart InterCivic infamous for mechanical failure? That’s our guy.

The narrative is already being hyped by the corporate media. As Kelly O'Donnell reported for NBC's Today Show on October 8th, Ohio's Hamilton County is "ground zero" for deciding who holds the White House come January, 2013.

O'Donnell pointed out that no candidate has won the White House without carrying Ohio since John Kennedy did it in 1960. No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio's electoral votes.

As documented in the e-book Will The GOP Steal America’s 2012 Election? George W. Bush got a second term in 2004 thanks to the manipulation of the electronic vote count by Ohio's then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell served as the co-chair of the state's committee to re-elect Bush/Cheney while simultaneously administering the election.

Hmm, that sounds fair...doesn’t it? You suspicious people.

The widespread use of electronic voting machines from ES&S, and of Diebold software maintained by Triad, allowed Blackwell to electronically flip a 4% Kerry lead to a 2% Bush victory in the dead of election night. ES&S, Diebold and Triad were all owned or operated by Republican partisans. The shift of more than 300,000 votes after 12:20 am election night was a virtual statistical impossibility.

Are you people freaken kidding? Where was Kerry? Why didn't he complain? Boy, I sure hope that doesn’t happen this time. Duh

It was engineered by Michael Connell, an IT specialist long affiliated with the Bush Family. Blackwell gave Connell's Ohio-based company the contract to count Ohio's votes, which was done on servers housed in the Old Pioneer Bank Building in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

High-five Connell, that scamp. He knew what was best for the country, even if we didn’t. Thanx, Mikey, for sticking us with the dullest knife in the drawer. Couldn't have done it without your expertise.

Thus the Ohio vote tally was done on servers that also carried the e-mail for Karl Rove and the national Republican Party.

How convenient.

Connell died in a mysterious plane crash in December, 2008, after being subpoenaed in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal lawsuit focused on how the 2004 election was decided.

Whoa! Connell wouldn’t have spilled da beans. He didn’t need to be erased. There was so much evil he could have done

Diebold's founder, Walden O'Dell, had vowed to deliver Ohio's electoral votes--and thus the presidency--to his friend George W. Bush.

Bush actually had a friend?? Get my smelling salts...quick!

Electronic voting machines and software O'Dell happened to own cemented the win for monkey face (my enduring words for the little twit. (Diebold has since changed hands twice). A cautionary red flag remains for those who believe merely winning the popular vote will give Barack Obama a second term.

No. We don’t believe that for one cotton-pickin’ minute. What we believe is it's a crapshoot

This November, much of the Ohio electorate will cast its ballots on machines again owned by close cronies of the Republican presidential candidate.

And we’re ready for it, right, gang?

In Cincinnati and elsewhere around the state, the e-voting machines are owned by Hart Intercivic. Hart's machines are infamous for mechanical failures, "glitches," counting errors and other timely problems now thoroughly identified with the way Republicans steal elections.

Let’s see. Yep! That covers everything. Let the voting begin!

As in 2004, Ohio's governor is now a Republican. This time it's the very right-wing John Kasich, himself a multi-millionaire courtesy of a stint at Lehman Brothers selling state bonds, and the largesse of Rupert Murdoch, on whose Fox Network Kasich served as a late night boviator.

A late night wha? Boviator? I had one but the wheels fell off.

Murdoch wrote Kasich a game-changing $1 million check just prior to his winning the statehouse, an electoral victory shrouded in electronic intrigue.

Electronic intrigue? Oh you’re too suspicious. It was a fair...aarrggghh...choked on some throw-up. 

The exit polls in that election indicated that his opponent, incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland, had actually won the popular vote.

Yeah, but what does that prove?

Ohio's very Republican Secretary of State is John Husted, currently suing in the US Supreme Court to prevent the public from voting on the weekend prior to election day.

Yeah! We can’t have that weekend voting crap. We don’t wanna work weekends, hear?

As did Blackwell and Governor Robert Taft in 2004, Husted and Kasich will control Ohio's electronic vote count on election night free of meaningful public checks or balances.

What could possibly go wrong?

Hart Intercivic, on whose machines the key votes will be cast in Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, was taken over last year by H.I.G. Capital.

Prominent partners and directors on the H.I.G. board hail from Bain Company or Bain Capital, both connected to Mitt Romney.

Mitt who?

H.I.G. employees have contributed at least $338,000 to Romney's campaign. H.I.G. Directors John P. Bolduk and Douglas Berman are major Romney fund raisers, as is former Bain and H.I.G. manager Brian Shortsleeve.

How special. It’s all in the family. And how ‘bout those H.I.G.employees? Are they not committed? Either that or they didn't want their kneecaps broken.