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Does the Romney Family Now Own Your E-Vote?

By Gerry Bello, Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman/ Daily Kos/ October 17, 2012

Will you cast your vote this fall on a faulty electronic machine that’s partly owned by the Romney Family?  Will that machine decide whether Romney will then inherit the White House?

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 (http://www.hartintercivic.com ).

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.

They are especially crucial in Ohio, without which no Republican candidate has ever won the White House.  In 2004, in the dead of election night, an electronic swing of more than 300,000 votes switched Ohio from the John Kerry column to George W. Bush, giving him a second term.  A virtual statistical impossibility, the 6-plus% shift occurred between 12:20 and 2am election night as votes were being tallied by a GOP-controlled information technology firm on servers in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  In defiance of a federal injunction, 56 of Ohio’s 88 counties destroyed all election records, making a recount impossible.  Ohio’s governor and secretary of state in 2004 were both Republicans, as are the governors and secretaries of state in nine key swing states this year ( http://www.freepress.org/… ).

As we have previously reported,  H.I.G. Capital has on its board of directors at least three close associates of the Romney family.  H.I.G. Capital directors John P. Bolduk and Douglas Berman are major Romney fundraisers.  So is former Bain and H.I.G. manager Brian Shortsleeve.  H.I.G. employees have contributed at least $338,000 to Romney’s campaign.  Fully a third of H.I.G.’s leadership previously worked at Romney’s old Bain firm.

But new research now shows that the association doesn’t stop with mere friendship and business associations.  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.

Unlike other private equity firms, Solamere does not invest in companies directly.   Instead, Solamere invests in other private equity funds, like H.I.G. Capital.  Solamere calls them “partners.”  These partners, like H.I.G., then invest in various enterprises, like Hart Intercivic, the nation’s third-largest voting machine manufacturer.

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