In OH and CO who counts the votes?

[dado potato]

The UPI news syndicate has picked up a story from Salon.com discussing Hart Intercivic, which suggests that the votes in Ohio and Colorado on November 6 will be counted using systems from this company.

After suspicious anomalies in the Ohio results in the last presidential election, Hart was evaluated by the Ohio Attorney General (?) office, which concluded that unauthorized individuals could get access to memory cards, and easily tamper with core voting data. "Virtually every ballot, vote, election result, and audit log is forgeable or otherwise manipulatible by an attacker with even brief access to the voting system".

Reportedly the system has not been upgraded to address its vulnerabilities since 2007.

And by the way, a significant investment in Hart was made by HIG Capital in July of 2011, within a month of Mitt Romney launching his campaign. The board of HIG Capital reportedly includes seven directors who were formerly employed by Bain & Co. HIG Capital has contributed $338,000 to Romney's campaign according to Opensecrets.

What I wonder is: how much of the election in these states is going to be determined by Hart Intercivic systems? Will it be just a few precincts, or the whole ball of wax?

The larger issue is: US elections depend on the integrity and capability of partisan political officials in the various states, and some states' election machinery depends on software and "black boxes" that conceivably could contain vulnerabilities resulting in rigged election results.

[Gregg]

THERE IS NO MEASURABLE VOTER FRAUD! THERE IS NO MEASURABLE VOTER FRAUD! THERE IS NO MEASURABLE VOTER FRAUD!

We were all pretty much convinced voter fraud is a non-issue a couple weeks back.

[Alan]

This is the second time this subject has come up in the past week.

While you didn't provide a link to the story, the one provided in the last thread on the subject pointed out that in Ohio, Hart Intercivic machines would be used in one county, Hamilton County, which includes the city of Cincinnati. The other story also implied that since Tagg Romney is an investor in Hart Intercivic, the possibility of shenanigans was of concern. Your post seems to imply that Hart Intercivic machines would be used across the entire state. Which version is correct?

I found this to be of interest since I've lived and worked in and around Cincinnati for the past 35 years. We don't usually get this kind of national attention.

Oh, and to parrot Gregg, we've been assured over and over and over again that THERE IS NO MEASURABLE VOTER FRAUD!, and that any/all attempts to ensure ballot integrity is a Republican attempt to disenfranchise Democrats, plus it's RACIST!

[ApatheticNoMore]

It's actually and "on balance" argument, figuring the degree of voter fraud that takes place if any by people without ID is probably on balance outweighed by the number of voters (grandma?) who would potentially be disenfranchised by requiring ID to vote PLUS the potential to deliberately use the scheme for disenfranchisement.

That the downsides for dealing with MACHINES as opposed to human beings could have an entirely different cost/benefits or be very different "on balance" seems obvious, as this would rely on entirely different processes. The means by which you would secure machines or provide a human check on them wouldn't be "making sure the machines show ID". It's obvious different processes would be used and thus the tradeoffs are not equivalent.

[iris lily]

The fodder for comedy that this thread is, notwithstanding, I have to say Dado that dropping in here on this website to parrot Salon.com and spread its inuendos is beneath you. Have a nice day.

[dado potato]

Hey Iris, it has been a nice day. I did not realize this matter already had been discussed. I am not sure your accusation of spreading "ineundos" really fits. I was hoping for some fact-checking in terms of how much of a role this particular company's system will play. Alan said one county.

[Alan]

I was hoping for some fact-checking in terms of how much of a role this particular company's system will play. Alan said one county.
I can only point you to the article I mentioned earlier. http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/19137

What did Salon have to say regarding the company's role?

[creaker]

We were all pretty much convinced voter fraud is a non-issue a couple weeks back.

Fraud from within the voting booth - fraud from outside of the voting booth is much more common (maybe not so much in US, but we've definitely seen it in wide practice in other countries).

[bae]

http://www.votefraud.org/stalin_voting.jpg

This is why I am oh-so-happy my county has gone to all mail-in balloting, with ballot processing done by inscrutable software that we are assured is "safe", and that each ballot has a unique identifier linking the voter to the ballot cast....

[loosechickens]

There is an interesting article in the new issue of Harper's Magazine. I don't think you can read the entire article online unless you are a subscriber, but an excerpt from the article can be read here:

http://harpers.org/blog/2012/10/an-excerpt-from-how-to-rig-an-election/

....not specifically about this investment of Tagg Romney's company in the voting machine company, but in the vulnerabilities of computerized voting machines in general, and problems that have arisen in the past, and well documented studies of how easy they are to manipulate. Also how, quietly, just a few companies have control of most of the country's voting machines, and which are most dangerous and vulnerable to hacking or manipulation.

The integrity of our elections is paramount. Once the people do not trust the count, we are close to a drastic situation that could lead to widespread and uncontrollable situations in the future. It is in the best interest of ALL of us that our voting machines be safe, and that there be a paper record that can be examined minutely in cases of suspected fraud.

In person voting fraud IS pretty much not happening, and both parties have attested in court cases that have been argued this year to that effect. It is practically nonexistent.

Unfortunately, that is not the case for voter machine manipulation. Perhaps all this smoke and mirrors of worrying about people registering to vote fraudulently provides excellent cover for the quiet manipulation of the whole system.

We are being "trained" not to trust the polls, not to "trust" exit polls........so it may be something we should fear. What in the world should make us have faith that "computers can't be hacked", hahahahaha

[iris lily]

... Perhaps all this smoke and mirrors of worrying about people registering to vote fraudulently provides excellent cover for the quiet manipulation of the whole system. ..



Oh those waskally wepublicans, at it again.

Well, that's easy, ya'll who distrust-- use the paper ballot.

[freein05]

Computers counting votes!thumbsup! OMG. Half of the time I can not even turn on my new iPad or even type the correct words with what they call a key board.

[peggy]

We were all pretty much convinced voter fraud is a non-issue a couple weeks back.

gee gregg, while you are quoting me from another thread, why didn't you include the part where I said that when voter fraud happened in the past, it usually occurs in the transmission of votes, or in the counting of votes (Florida, although it also helped that Bush had a brother to 'help' him along).
Pretty disingenuous to try to take my words out of context (you know we were discussing individual voter fraud) and use them here, which is probably why it is bad form and frowned upon to lift words from another thread to use elsewhere. Right? But you know that, as a moderator and all....

For the record, my words, that were lifted from another thread and used here (against me i presume) were from a discussion about voter ID laws requiring ridiculous hoop jumping to vote. Individuals voting, or not voting. Not a discussion about vote counting, tossing registrations (which apparently is a favorite tactic of the right) or rigging voting machines. In these areas, voter fraud DOES happen. Voter ID laws don't address this.

[dado potato]

Thanks Alan for link. In the discussion after that article, was a link that that seemed to answer my question
http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/ a database of the voting machine technologies and the vendors, around the USA

According to this data base, Hart Intercivic is the vendor of machines for either absentee or in-person voting in
California
Colorado
Indiana
Kentucky
Hawaii
Illinois
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia (Alexandrai, Charlottesville, Falls Church)
Washington

Incidentally Diebold and Sequoia also are major vendors. If I have a little spare time I'd like to find out if either of those two companies are under investigation for allegations of rigging voting results.

[dado potato]

In Ohio, Hart Intercivic does the job for Hamilton County (565,418 registered voters) and Williams County (25,633 registered voters).

Based on the NYT listing of "Swing" Presidential States with the most electoral votes up for grabs in 2012, the vendors of vote-counting machinery are:

Florida (29 Electoral Votes)
Diebold
Election Systems and Software
Sequoia Voting Systems

Pennsylvania (20 Electoral Votes)
Diebold
Election Systems and Software
Hart Intercivic
Sequoia Voting Systems
Danaher Controls

Ohio (18 Electoral Votes)
Diebold
Election Systems and Software
Hart Intercivic

Virginia (13 Electoral Votes)
Diebold
Election Systems and Software
Hart Intercivic
Sequoia Voting Systems
Advanced Voting Systems
Unilect
Peripheral Dynamics

[iris lily]

http://tinyurl.com/d3jltam

The above Washington Post article talks about campaign shenanigans in a Democratic Congressman's Virgina district. Were they planning to cast ballots for dead people? hmmmm, you decide.

[Gregg]

http://tinyurl.com/d3jltam

The above Washington Post article talks about campaign shenanigans in a Democratic Congressman's Virgina district. Were they planning to cast ballots for dead people? hmmmm, you decide.

Sounds like they should consult with a Democratic politican from Chicago. Always turn to the pros for advice.

[Lainey]

I wonder if the situation was reversed, and it was the Obama family who owned stock in these voting machine companies, which also just happened to be used in critical states - would we hear any concern then? or would it also just be laughably paranoid?

[iris lily]

I wonder if the situation was reversed, and it was the Obama family who owned stock in these voting machine companies, which also just happened to be used in critical states - would we hear any concern then? or would it also just be laughably paranoid?

I think the issue would be raised, it will always be raised, humans don't trust other humans or human political machines. That's not always a bad thing.

[The Storyteller]

Voter fraud and election tampering are different issues.

[heydude]

there needs to be actual paper trails.....for recounts, etc.

[ApatheticNoMore]

there needs to be actual paper trails.....for recounts, etc.

Agreed. It all starts wtih paper ballots here (maybe electronically counted) so there is theoretically a paper trail (though I doubt it's being checked). I have always distrusted and been opposed to electronic voting, those machines were proved hackable years ago, call me a conspiracy theorist to have read plenty about it all years ago, but it's never seemed particularly trustable.