Len Colby Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Romney will win without OHIO. But past is Prologue and he will cheat if he can. Any Combo of NV(6),CO (9) ,IA (6) over ten buts Romney over the top. I assume NH (4) to Romney. Even if he doesnt CO plus any of other two (NV,IA) leads to POTUS Romney. Translation I was wrong about Ohio but won't admit it. Also math seems not to be your forte http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2012/ecalculator#?battleground Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted October 30, 2012 Author Share Posted October 30, 2012 (edited) Also math seems not to be your forte // END Colby Also math seems not to be your forte, Gaal Romney will win without OHIO. But past is Prologue and he will cheat if he can. Any Combo of NV(6),CO (9) ,IA (6) over ten buts Romney over the top. I assume NH (4) to Romney. Even if he doesnt CO plus any of other two (NV,IA) leads to POTUS Romney. PLEASE SEE LINK BELOW http://www.electoral-vote.com/ +++++++++++++++++++++ CHARACTER IS AS CHARACTER DOES Edited October 30, 2012 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Also math seems not to be your forte // END Colby Also math seems not to be your forte, Gaal Romney will win without OHIO. But past is Prologue and he will cheat if he can. Any Combo of NV(6),CO (9) ,IA (6) over ten buts Romney over the top. I assume NH (4) to Romney. Even if he doesnt CO plus any of other two (NV,IA) leads to POTUS Romney. PLEASE SEE LINK BELOW http://www.electoral-vote.com/ +++++++++++++++++++++ CHARACTER IS AS CHARACTER DOES As I said "math seems not to be your forte" even using the data from your site which apportions Romney more states than CNN or RCP he has 235 safe or probable electoral votes, thus he is 35 electoral votes short or 34 if we assume the House would give him the tie break. Thus "any Combo of NV(6),CO (9) ,IA (6) over ten" is not enough, not even all three of those plus 10 electoral votes from other states would be enough. Lennac the Magnificent predicts that Gaal will change the subject rather than admit error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Bumped for Mr. Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted November 3, 2012 Author Share Posted November 3, 2012 Employees of Romney family’s secret bank tied to fraud, money laundering, drug cartels and the CIA =================== By Gerry Bello and Bob Fitrakis Global Research, October 21, 2012 Free Press ooooooooooooooooo As previously reported in by the Columbus Free Press, the Romney family, namely Mitt, Ann, G Scott and Tagg Romney, along with Mitt’s “6th son” and campaign finance chair have a secretive private equity firm called Solamere Capital Partners. This firms ties to Romney’s campaign and bundlers is already well documented, along with its connection to the manufacture and distribution of voting machines. What is not as well documented is a subsidiary of that private equity firm hiring employees of a failed firm tied to a Ponzi scheme that has a long history of money laundering for Latin American drug cartels and to the Iran-Contra scandal. As reported by ThinkProgress, Solamere Capital Partner’s subsidiary Solamere Advisors is a investment advisory group, providing advice to Solamere clients and boosting sales. Would-be corporate pugilist Tagg Romney is a director. According to the New York Times, all but one of its 11 employees came from the Charlotte office of the Stanford Financial Group, the US investment arm of convicted felon R. Allen Stanford’s offshore banking and fraud network that comprised a host of companies including the Stanford International Bank, Stanford Capital Management, The Bank of Antigua, Stanford Trust and Stanford Gold and Bullion. Three of these employees, Tim Bambauer, Deems May, and Brandon Phillips, received incentive compensation related to their direct sales of securities linked to a fraud that brought down this banking network. Tim Bambauer has left his position as managing partner at Solamere Advisors. May and Phillips remain employed as partner and chief compliance officer respectively. Allen Stanford is currently serving a 110-year prison sentence for convictions on 13 counts of fraud. His companies were placed in receivership. $8 billion of Stanford’s stolen money has yet to be recovered and the victims are in court to recover those funds and incentive pay bonuses to Stanford employees (including Bambauer, May and Phillips) for fraudulently getting people to invest in an operation that later bilked many of them out of their life’s savings. Stanford’s shady history and criminality did not begin with the fraudulent investments that lead to his downfall, nor was it unknown at the highest level of United State’s Government. In a 2006 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, the US Ambassador to Antigua advised “Embassy officers do not reach out to Stanford because of the allegations of bribery and money laundering. The Ambassador managed to stay out of any one-on-one photos with Stanford during the breakfast. For his part, Stanford said he preferred to conduct his business without contacting the Embassy, resolving any investment disputes directly with local governments. It is whispered in the region that Stanford facilitates resolution with significant cash contributions.” Similarly investigations by the SEC, FBI and Scotland Yard into Stanford’s empire stalled or failed all the way back to the 1980s. The Independent Newspaper in the UK alleges that Stanford’s network was on the FBI’s radar for more than 20 years. Stanford set up his first offshore bank in 1986, just as Eugene Hausenfaus, shot down while gun running for the CIA in Nicaragua, was being connected to another company named Stanford, in this case the “Stanford Technology Trading Group” owned by Richard Secord, Albert Hakim, and 4 unknown other persons, perhaps including Allen Stanford. According to Iran-Contra Whistleblower Al Martin (Lt. Cmdr. USNR ret.) “Anything with the name Stanford on it belonged to Secord”. When finally brought to trial, Stanford employed the same defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin, as Iran-Contra defendant Oliver North. As the Iran-Contra explosion crippled the CIA’s Caribbean bank of choice, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), Stanford’s offshore banking empire was using the same techniques and embracing the same moral category of clients. Stanford’s banks were known to have laundered money from the Juarez Cartel and alleged to have done so earlier for the Medellin Cartel, and one of his private planes has been seized by the Mexican government in a drug case. On top of legal woes in the United States and Mexico, the London Daily Telegraph reported that Stanford’s Venezuelan offices were raided by Venezuela’s military intelligence over claims that its employees were paid by the CIA to spy on the South American country. When asked about this in a CNBC interview which was cited in a story by independent journalist Tom Burghardt, Stanford declined to comment on any involvement with the CIA rather than outright deny it. All of the these dealings by Stanford, and the complicity of his employees in facilitating them, was public information before January 2010, when Mitt Romney addressed the first full meeting of Solamere’s investors. Yet his son Tagg chose to hire into his family these alleged white collar criminals as soon as Stanford’s criminal empire collapsed. The Romney family stands by the new employees associated with their secret bank, as evidenced by Tagg’s response to interview questions from ThinkProgress regarding Solamere’s ability to reign them in: “Hey guys, We’re done here”. ######################################## PART 2 Financial Fraud, The Laundering of Drug Money and the CIA A Full-Service, Bank: Stanford International Bank (SIB) ================= By Tom Burghardt Global Research, August 05, 2010 Antifascist Calling... 4 August 2010 oooooooooooooooo Last year, when a federal court in Texas handed down indictments charging Stanford International Bank (SIB) and its officers with “orchestrating a fraudulent, multibillion dollar investment scheme,” I wondered: was there more to the story? Indeed there was. Once described by fawning media as a “flamboyant Texan” and “philanthropist,” Stanford was founder and sole shareholder of a global banking empire once conservatively valued at $50 billion. According to the federal indictment, “Sir Allen,” (R. Allen Stanford) as he was dubbed by a corrupt former minister of Antigua, ran a massive Ponzi scheme camouflaged as a bank that sold some $7 billion in self-styled “certificates of deposit” and $1.2 billion in mutual funds. Operated from behind a façade of well-appointed offices and with a jet-set lifestyle to match, the SIB grift may have been impressive but it was a scam from the get-go. Lured by “high rates that exceed those available through true certificates of deposits offered by traditional banks,” thousands lost their shirts. Those high rates were a lie and the bank’s “unique investment strategy” about as legitimate as a penny-stock fraud or advance fee scam on the internet. Of the $8 billion hoovered up by the banker and his cronies, only about $500 million have been recovered. Facing the prospect of years in prison, The Miami Herald reported that SIB’s chief financial officer James Davis, once Stanford’s college roommate and originally charged in the indictment, copped a plea to save his own neck. Davis told the Justice Department that “his boss had been stealing from investors for decades while paying bribes to regulators and even performing blood oaths never to reveal his secrets.” Talk about a wise guy! And with connections and generous pay-outs to U.S. politicians going back more than a decade, 65% of which went to Democrats including our “change” president, Allen Stanford was plugged-in. Evidence also suggests he may have gotten an assist covering his tracks from regulators and U.S. secret state agencies, including the CIA. SEC Stand Down Allen Stanford did business the American way; he swindled depositors and then siphoned-off the proceeds into a spider’s web of offshore accounts. The indictment charges “it was part of the conspiracy that Stanford … and others would cause the movement of millions of dollars of fraudulently obtained investors’ funds from and among bank accounts located in the Southern District of Texas and elsewhere in the United States to various bank accounts located outside of the United States … in order to exercise exclusive control over the investors’ funds.” Auditors learned that funds were moved through Stanford-controlled accounts to offshore banks, including HSBC in London, Bank Julius Baer in Zurich and eight others; banks which have figured in past money laundering or tax-avoidance scandals. None have been charged with an offense in connection with the affair. In all, 28 numbered accounts were listed by prosecutors, veritable black holes that escaped scrutiny; that is if regulators in Washington were minding the store, which they weren’t. Years earlier, SEC investigators at the commission’s Ft. Worth office uncovered evidence of wrongdoing. According to an explosive report by the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General, Ft. Worth examiners launched a series of probes in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2004 exploring SIB practices but their diligence was sabotaged by high-level officials. That report, Investigation of the SEC’s Response to Concerns Regarding Robert Allen Stanford’s Alleged Ponzi Scheme, Case No. OIG-526, March 31, 2010, paints a damning picture of the regulatory process. The inspector general states: “While the Fort Worth Examination group made multiple efforts after each examination to convince the Fort Worth Enforcement program (‘Enforcement’) to open and conduct an investigation of Stanford, no meaningful effort was made by Enforcement to investigate the potential fraud or to bring an action to attempt to stop it until late 2005.” Last month, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that staff members, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared management retaliation, told the newspaper that higher-ups wanted “tools to do away with people who have a dissenting opinion.” Senior managers called the probes a “goat screw” and ordered them killed. The OIG investigation “found that the former head of Enforcement in Fort Worth, who played a significant role in multiple decisions over the years to quash investigations of Stanford, sought to represent Stanford on three separate occasions after he left the Commission, and in fact represented Stanford briefly in 2006 before he was informed by the SEC Ethics Office that it was improper to do so.” (emphasis added) In Florida, The Miami Herald revealed that state regulators did the SEC one better and gave the bank carte blanche to operate secretly, moving “vast amounts of money offshore–without reporting a penny to regulators.” The arrangement between the bank and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation was so brazen, that Stanford’s company “was allowed to sell hundreds of millions in bank notes without allowing regulators to check for fraud.” And once those suspect instruments were sold, the Heraldreported that “employees shredded records of the trust agreements and CD purchases once the original documents were sent to Antigua, state records show.” A sweet deal if you can get it, or have powerful friends who might wish to avoid messy inquiries touching upon sensitive matters. The New York Times reported last year that current charges “stem from an inquiry opened in October 2006,” that is, nearly a decade “after a routine exam of Stanford Group, according to Stephen J. Korotash, an associate regional director of enforcement with the agency’s Fort Worth office.” Korotash told the Times that the SEC “stood down” its investigation “at the request of another federal agency, which he declined to name.” According to BusinessWeek, in 2006 the Bush administration “bestowed on his intelligence czar … broad authority, in the name of national security” to excuse companies from “their normal accounting and securities-disclosure obligations” if such disclosures revealed “certain top-secret defense projects.” At the time, William McLucas, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s former enforcement chief told the publication that the ability to conceal financial information from regulators under the rubric of “national security” could lead some companies “to play fast and loose with their numbers.” The former official said, “it could be that you have a bunch of books and records out there that no one knows about.” In response to media reports, congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), wrote a letter to SEC Chair Mary Schapiro last year, demanding documents, and answers, why the SEC suspended investigations of the “Stanford Group under pressure from another unidentified federal agency.” The Ohio congressman said, “if this is true … our subcommittee will demand that the SEC reveal the name of that agency which told it not to enforce federal laws which protect investors.” Neither documents nor answers were forthcoming. Cynics might see something untoward here, but I think it’s all just a coincidence, like drug planes bought with bundles of cashlaundered through American banks. Drug Probes Killed In 1986 during the Iran-Contra period, Allen Stanford’s Guardian International Bank set up shop on the sleepy Caribbean isle of Montserrat (pop. 5,870). It didn’t take long before the bank came under scrutiny. Guardian was the subject of a joint Scotland Yard-FBI investigation “into so-called ‘brass-plate’ banks,” The Independent disclosed. According to reporters David Connett and Stephen Foley, the bank “was suspected of laundering drug money from the notorious Medellin and Cali drug cartels run by Pablo Escobar and the Orejuela brothers.” During the Iran-Contra scandal, congressional investigators and journalists scrutinized links between Colombian drug traffickers and the CIA’s Nicaraguan Contra army. By 1986, evidence began to emerge that top Contra officials and the Agency enjoyed cosy ties with both Escobar and the Orejuela brothers. Under pressure from the Reagan administration however, both Congress and corporate media deep-sixed the story as the affair was covered-up. A decade later, largely as a result of outrage generated by the late Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance series, a memorandum of understanding between Reagan’s Justice Department and the Agency entered the public record. That 1982 memo legally freed the CIA from reporting drug smuggling by their assets. Former FBI agent Ross Gaffney who led the Guardian probe, told Connett and Foley that “we suspected that Stanford’s bank was involved in money laundering.” But before that investigation could be developed, Stanford suddenly pulled up stakes and “voluntarily surrendered his Montserrat banking licence and left the island.” Gaffney said that even after Guardian closed, the FBI “continued to take an interest in Stanford and set up a second inquiry into that bank after receiving intelligence that it continued to launder money for the Medellin and Cali cartels.” The former federal agent told The Independent, “We had hard intelligence about what he was doing and we began to develop it” but the investigation died or more likely, killed, by officials higher-up the food chain. After leaving Montserrat, Stanford trained his sights on Antigua and Barbuda and developed a close relationship with former prime minister Lester Bird. “Under the Bird family leadership” Connett and Foley reported, “the island was widely regarded as one of the most corrupt in the Caribbean, with well-documented links to arms and drug smuggling and money laundering.” According to The Independent, “in 1990, Israeli automatic weapons ordered by Mr Bird’s brother Vere turned up in the hands of a notorious Colombian drug trafficker.” Despite suspicions, it appears that Stanford was golden as far as the feds were concerned; just another guy with an endless supply of “get-out-of-jail-free” cards. One reason Stanford operated with impunity, the BBC informs us, is that he “may have been a US government informer.” DEA documents seen by BBC’s investigative unit Panorama, suggest that “drug money [was] originally paid in to Stanford International Bank by agents acting for a feared Mexican drug lord known as the ‘Lord of the Heavens’.” Confidential DEA sources believe that Stanford turned over “details of money-laundering from Latin American clients from Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela and Ecuador,” thus “effectively guaranteeing himself a decade’s worth of ‘protection’ from the authorities, especially the SEC.” “We were convinced that Stanford’s bank attracted millions of narco-dollars,” sources told Panorama, “but it was very difficult to get the evidence to nail him.” “The word is” BBC reported, “that Stanford has been a confidential informer for the DEA since ’99.” Snitch or not, this raises intriguing questions. Was Stanford’s bank a black hole which U.S. intelligence agencies could exploit, in the interest of “national security” mind you, and therefore exempt from “normal disclosure obligations” asBusinessWeek averred? If this were so, then even if Stanford were an informant he could have continued to launder drug money and profit nicely; such gentleman’s agreements are not without precedent. One need only glance at internal U.S. government documentsreleased by the National Security Archive, documents which revealed the Cali cartel’s close collaboration with corrupt Colombian police, neofascist paramilitaries and the CIA when Medellín drug lord Pablo Escobar was run to ground. Pointedly, was Stanford’s banking empire another in a long line of institutional channels that drug cartels and the CIA could both profit from? Banks, Drugs and Covert Operations Across the decades, historians, investigative journalists and researchers have uncovered strong evidence that various banks have served as virtual cut-outs for CIA covert operations. Readers need only recall illegal activities by institutions as diverse as Paul Helliwell’s Castle Bank and Trust in the Bahamas, Frank Nugan and Michael Hand’s Nugan Hand Bank in Sydney and the Cayman Islands, or the far-flung empire of Agha Hasan Abedi’s Bank and Credit and Commerce International. Separated in time and geography, what all three banks had in common was their close proximity to international drug trafficking networks and the CIA, particularly in areas of acute interest to U.S. policy planners. Did Stanford International Bank have a similar arrangement with the Agency? When the scandal finally broke, the Houston Chronicle reported that authorities had been “looking for ties to organized drug cartels and money laundering, going back at least a decade.” In the late 1990s, court documents revealed that “operatives of the Juarez cartel began opening accounts at Stanford’s Antigua-based bank,” laundering profits amassed by the Amado Carrillo Fuentes organization, the late “Lord of the Heavens” referred to in the BBC report. The Chronicle notes that Fuentes’ representatives “used Stanford International Bank to open 10 accounts and deposit $3 million.” We should bear in mind however, these represent onlyknown accounts. Were there others? Federal and state investigators have said that there were. After authorities determined the accounts were held by a notorious drug cartel, Stanford turned over the $3 million. Yet despite hard evidence of criminal wrongdoing, federal officials told the Chronicle that “any alleged Stanford connection to drug cartels and their money could lie buried in the paperwork gathered for the Security and Exchange Commission’s civil inquiry.” One might even say rather conveniently. During the same period, Texas state securities regulators uncovered more evidence of money laundering by Stanford entities. But because it involved offshore banks, they “referred it” to the FBI and SEC. Texas Securities Commissioner Denise Voigt Crawford told a Senate Finance Committee last year, “Why it took 10 years for the feds to move on it, I cannot answer.” Miffed by government foot-dragging, Crawford added, “We worked with the FBI and the SEC and basically gave them the case. We told them what we’d seen and they were going to run with it.” But that investigation died on the vine. Echoing similar themes, The Observer disclosed an FBI source close to the investigation confirmed that the Bureau “was looking at links to international drug gangs as part of the huge investigation into Stanford’s banking activities.” The Observer reported that Mexican authorities seized one of Stanford’s private jets in connection with alleged links to the Gulf cartel and said that “cheques found inside the plane were linked to the cartel, which is one of the most violent criminal organisations in the world.” DEA sources told the London newspaper “there may well have been a trail connecting his Mexican affairs to narco-trafficking interests.” However, a second DEA official told The Observer, “I think we’ll find that any possible drug-related trail and SEC priorities are not all in the same frame.” A curious statement considering the billions of dollars in fraudulent activities alleged against the bank, some of which may have been derived from laundering drug money. One would assume that evidence of serious wrongdoing would be motive enough to take a hard look at the allegations and not concoct a fairy tale that these charges lie “buried in the paperwork”! A U.S. drug enforcement official told The Observer, “Any major US interest seeking to avoid fully disclosed investments would have to go to pretty careful lengths to avoid encountering cartel interests.” “Anyone seeking to conceal or launder money would find it in safe and lucrative hands were they to forge alliances with, rather than skirt, the cartels,” The Observer noted, and would “find them accommodating in terms of remuneration.” The official hastened to add, it’s “nothing anyone will confirm for Stanford right now.” The question is: why? A Full-Service Bank One possible answer may revolve around charges that SIB’s Venezuela branch was a conduit for laundered CIA funds. If true, then the Agency would be dead set against trial disclosures that revealed the bank had been involved in laundering drug money, particularly if narcotics syndicates are playing a role in U.S. destabilization efforts there. Months before Stanford’s empire collapsed, Venezuela’s socialist government launched a raid on SIB offices in Caracas. The Daily Telegraph reported that “Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire … is now at the centre of an international spying row.” The conservative British newspaper disclosed that “officials from Venezuelan military intelligence raided a branch of his offshore bank over claims that its employees were paid by the CIA to spy on the south American country.” Although corporate media in the U.S. dismissed Venezuelan allegations as propaganda, questions persist. While on a charm offensive before his arrest last year, Stanford gave an interview to CNBC’s Scott Cohn. When asked about claims that his bank may have been a cut-out for the Agency, this curious exchange took place: Cohn: “You just by nature of your position and where you were got to know a lot of people in Latin America, in Africa, in Europe, around the world, and it strikes me that somebody in your position would be useful to the authorities in the US trying to find out what was going on there, what was going on in places like Venezuela. Can you tell me about any sort of role you played that way, were you helpful to the authorities in the US?” Stanford: “Are you talking about the CIA?” Cohn: “Well, you tell me.” Stanford: “I’m not going to talk about that.” Cohn: “Why not?” Stanford: “I’m just not going to talk about that.” Cohn: “Well, I mean, am I–is my premise correct that someone in your position would be helpful to those who wanted to know what was going on?” Stanford: “I really don’t have anything to add to that that would be of any value.” Stanford’s reticence is certainly understandable, considering Frank Hand’s fate 30 years ago. During a similar scandal when the CIA-linked Nugan Hand bank collapsed amid charges of fraud and drug money laundering, the chief executive turned up dead in his Mercedes with a shot to the head. Despite evidence uncovered by investigations going back to the 1980s, drug money laundering charges or any reference to Agency activities will not figure in the Justice Department’s case when Stanford goes on trial in January. As ABC News delicately put it, SEC action against Stanford “may have complicated the federal drug case.” Underscoring the federal government’s reluctance to explore this dark corner of Allen Stanford’s career, it might do well to keep in mind what one airline executive told investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker during his probe into the 9/11 attacks. “Sometimes when things don’t make business sense, its because they do make sense…just in some other way.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted November 3, 2012 Share Posted November 3, 2012 Perhaps true perhaps not but Fitrakis is a proven xxxx and the evidence indicates "Solamere Capital Partners...[has NO] connection to the manufacture and distribution of voting machines." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted November 5, 2012 Author Share Posted November 5, 2012 Perhaps true perhaps not but Fitrakis is a proven xxxx and the evidence indicates "Solamere Capital Partners...[has NO] connection to the manufacture and distribution of voting machines. // END COLBY ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Solamere Capital Partners issue is purposeful obfuscation and confusion by Colby. Romney CLAN/Friends into electronic voting. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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. (BRADBLOG) http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBV-AntiTrust-Letter.pdf SEE PAGES 3-4 On Hart Intercivic ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ BLACKBOXVOTING - COLORADO SETS THE STAGE FOR A BOGUS ELECTION - ... Colorado election integrity and transparency is now officially out the window, with a series of corruption protection rules and new laws. 1. Let's begin with the unflappable Donetta Davidson, who collaborated with convicted embezzler Jeffrey Dean(1) to remove voter privacy, through a contract specification that required him to redo his absentee mail software in order to embed a method to tie voted ballots to the voters. This shifty business, which now includes all absentee ballots cast on Hart eSlate machines, has led to a blockade on ALL Colorado election accounting records (see #4, below). 2. Next, in a move that has most of us scratching our heads, Colorado Sec. State Gessler proposed new rules in December 2011 to remove requirements for continuous video surveillance.(2) Though billed as "cost saving," note that most video surveillance nowadays is simply piped into digital files stored on a Web site. Since cameras are already installed, there is no significant cost savings in allowing non-continuous surveillance. 3. Sec. State Gessler also decided to reduce the number of seals on voting machines,(2) to the chagrin of election integrity groups like Voter Action, whose investigations and litigation demonstrated vulnerabilities requiring the seals in the first place. The "cost savings" in this measure can be counted in pennies. 4. A number of protective accounting measures crucial for evaluating election tampering have been taken off the table though a new law to block election-related public records examination. Donetta Davidson led the lobbying for this law. Davidson had become a commissioner of the U.S. Election Assistence Commission, then took a step down to take over the Colorado Clerks Association. In this capacity she led a fight to block the media and citizens from examining the ballots. And no wonder: She knew that due to changes made under her administration, private companies had marks embedded on the ballots enabling them to harvest data tying votes to voters. Thanks to a lawsuit by Colorado citizen Marilyn Marks, of The Citizen Center, sponsored and assisted by Black Box Voting, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed right to examine ballots. Marks was shocked when she discovered that identifying marks on the ballots allowed her to immediately associate every voted ballot with the voter who cast it. Marks, The Citizen Center, (and Black Box Voting) are now involved in litigation to permanently prohibit this harvesting of personal political information. In the interim, Sec. State Gessler has required that the identifiers be removed for November 2012 only. With ballot examination affirmed to be in the public domain, Davidson's next move was to block ballot examination until after all remedies had expired. Using her clout, she lobbied successfully for the removal of ballots -- AND OTHER CRUCIAL ELECTION RECORDS, SUCH AS POLL LISTS -- from any access by election watchdogs until 45 days after the election.(3) One telltale sign of election tampering is when thousands more votes than voters show up. But in Colorado, neither the media nor the public will be allowed to examine the poll lists or the list of names for voters said to have voted absentee, until too late to do anything about discrepancies. 5. And then there is the matter of alleged Romney ties to the second-biggest voting machine manufacturer in America. These connections are being minimized by Internet outlets like Snopes, but the straight truth is that Hart Intercivic, the firm that supplies two-thirds of Colorado counties with their voting machines, is now owned by a spin-off of Bain & Company (H.I.G. Capital).(4) A majority of Hart's directors are now H.I.G. guys, and the directors of H.I.G. are Romney bundlers and donors who don't hedge their bets by donating to any other presidential candidate. This isn't the first time Romney has had his buddies in charge of crucial election processes this year. Some weeks after the misreported figures in the Iowa caucus, which incorrectly cited Romney as the winner, Black Box Voting uncovered that Romney staffers had been brought in to run the Iowa Caucus, and the Nevada Caucus too. Besides heading Romney campaign functions, these guys were associated with an odious Colorado political firm which narrowly escaped prosecution for maliciously misleading political ads.(5) And the Romney affiliation with Hart Intercivic doesn't rule out his buddies -- or Obama's buddies -- or George Soros -- or the Chinese, for that matter -- owning the other companies. Election Systems & Software (ES&S) does not reveal who its owners are, and we don't know who owns Dominion either. ES&S directly handles voting machines in three Colorado counties; it co-produces elections on the old Diebold equipment with Dominion, with ES&S supplying technicians in some U.S. locations and Dominion in others. Dominion owns Sequoia Voting Systems (or does it? No one seems to be quite sure...), used in large metro Denver County and in Pueblo.(6) Confused? American elections are now so far removed from the hands of the people that self-governance is just a memory. 6. Romney's business buddies owning Colorado's main voting machine company demonstrates, at the very least, an appearance of impropriety, but it carries with it something more: Actual opportunity to alter results. Unlike most Diebold voting machine locations, whose county technicians set up each election using voting company software, Hart has its customers send files directly to Texas, where its programmers and technicians have their way with the files, sending them back to the counties to put in their voting machines. This centralized control point does in fact enable tampering with results from a remote location. Paper ballots? Well, not all Colorado counties even have them, but thanks to Donetta Davidson and her cronies, they are off limits for human examination and will be interpreted only by the Hart machines. The Hart system has built-in secret functions in its system, discovered by researchers in the Everest Study commissioned by then-Ohio Sec. State Jennifer Bruner. "Undocumented functions" are accessed through the registry, geek territory for most of us but accessible by any administrator. Voting systems are supposed to be certified and they are not supposed to contain "undocumented functions" accessible through sophisticated built-in back doors into the registry. These are certainly not accidental and not even the researchers for the EVEREST study were able to determine what these functions do.(7) 7. Loosey-goosey absentee system combines with obstruction of observation: Half of all ballots in Colorado are likely to be cast absentee, due to the implementation of not only no-fault absentee, but active promotion of "permanent" absentee status by Donetta Davidson's Colorado Clerks Assocation. With "permanent absentee" they send ballots even if they were not requested, and following a tussle, they also send ballots to people who didn't request them who haven't voted for years. Seems like a prescription for insider-driven absentee fraud (where an elections worker exploits names of inactive voters to insert ballots into the pool). It also seems like it would at least be a good idea to allow extra careful observation of the whole absentee process, to authenticate the ID numbers of voters in whose name ballots are being cast. Unfortunately, this is not the case. "We used to stand beside the workers and look to see if the person reading an ID number and the person typing the ID number into the system were doing it properly," [Mary] Eberle said. [Eberle was a watcher for the American Constitution Party who is also a member of the watchdog group Citizen Center] "We could see how well they matched the signatures on a ballot envelope with the voter signature on file in [the state's registered voter database]. Well, we can't do that anymore..." (8) According to The Colorado Independent: Marty Neilson, Republican Party election watcher, walked out of the Boulder County Clerk's building in disgust as workers there tabulated primary voting results the last week of June. Neilson said she couldn't see anything of substance and felt like she was participating in a sham exercise in oversight. "[Clerk Hillary Hall] kept us behind [solid] walls and behind glass walls," Neilson told the Colorado Independent. "We are there to view the whole process, which is what the statutes say we're supposed to do, from the time the [election workers] get the ballots to the time they verify the signatures and then count the votes. But it was a charade. I left because why stay? There was no reason to be there." * * * * * The core of a true democratic system is the concept of self-governance. If the public is not allowed to see and authenticate essential parts of the election (who can vote - voter list; who did vote - poll lists; the counting of the vote; and chain of custody) -- if the public is left standing in the dark while insiders control the levers of operation and accounting, you don't have self-government at all. What you are left with is the government choosing itself. * * * * * FOOTNOTES (1) Jeff Dean involvement in vote by mail software: http://www.bbvforums...0328/81241.html Colorado demand to tie votes to voters: (full transcript: http://www.blackboxv...4kim-v-dean.pdf - 1,007 KB) ; Page 19: ..."okay, if this voter showed up in the subsequent upload, then I need to ... tell them ... what ballot number he was assigned so they can pull it [the voted ballot] back out. It was a fundamental change in the way the program worked. Q When you say Colorado was told that, do you know who told them that the program was capable of doing that? A Jeff [Dean] More: http://www.bbvforums.../133/80503.html (2) Denver Post; Posted: 12/07/2011 02:19:33 PM MST; Updated: 12/07/2011 03:52:07 PM MST; By Sara Burnett http://www.denverpos...ews/ci_19490338 "Among the changes being considered: - Eliminate the requirement that video security surveillance of areas where election software is used be "continuous." Video surveillance is required for 60 days prior and 30 days after an election. - Eliminate requirement that a county clerk or election judge who suspects tampering report it to the Secretary of State. Instead, such investigations would be handled at the county level. - Reduce the number of tamper-proof seals that must be placed on seams of cases that hold the equipment's electronic components. (3) New law to restrict access to election records http://www.centerpos...2&story_id=1701 (4) Romney ties to Hart Intercivic: http://truth-out.org...own-your-e-vote (5) Former Romney staffers run Iowa, Nevada caucuses: http://www.bbvforums...es/8/81900.html (6) Map of voting machines in Colorado: http://www.verifiedvoting.org (7) Hart use of registry for undocumented functions: http://www.bbvdocs.o...VEREST-Hart.pdf "18.3.2 Windows Registry Misuse The Windows registry is a operating system service that maintains configuration parameters for applications installed on the computer. The Hart system makes extensive use of the registry to enable/disable features of the system. While in general the use of the registry is not a problem, Hart uses it to enable critical functions and security sensitive operations. Issues arise because anyone with the appropriate privileges on the computer can read and change the registry. Thus an attacker without any Hart system passwords or hardware tokens can affect the security and behavior of the system. "...An interesting characteristic of the registry use in the Hart software is that it (generally) periodically checks registry entries, rather that just checking them at start-up. This has the consequence that triggered features can be turned on and off without restarting the software. "We found references to many dozens or more of registry entries used by the Hart EMS applications. We were only able to investigate a small number of these. The vast majority of registry entries are undocumented, and their purpose is often unclear. (8) Blocking meaningful observation of absentee processing: http://coloradoindep...hor/johntomasic The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody. ##################### For full map of voting systems in USA by vendor, see page 3 of this document: http://www.blackboxv...rust-Letter.pdf The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted November 6, 2012 Share Posted November 6, 2012 Perhaps true perhaps not but Fitrakis is a proven xxxx and the evidence indicates "Solamere Capital Partners...[has NO] connection to the manufacture and distribution of voting machines. // END COLBY ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Solamere Capital Partners issue is purposeful obfuscation and confusion by Colby. Romney CLAN/Friends into electronic voting. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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. (BRADBLOG) http://www.blackboxv...rust-Letter.pdf SEE PAGES 3-4 On Hart Intercivic . Get back to us with evidence that Snopes was wrong. The undocumented claims of a proven xxxx don’t count. You’ve proven that even basic addition is beyond you, why should anyone bother with with what you think anything remotely complex? And I’m worried about you patients; I hope use a calculator if you ever have to calculate dosages etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted November 6, 2012 Author Share Posted November 6, 2012 (edited) And I’m worried about you patients; // END COLBY LEN ONLY WORRIES ABOUT HIMSELF (COLBY TRIBUTE BELOW) Will "experimental" software patches affect the Ohio vote? by Bob Fitrakis and Gerry Bello October 31, 2012 Why did the Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's office, in an end run around Ohio election law, have "experimental" software patches installed on vote counting tabulators in up to 39 Ohio counties? Voting rights activists are concerned that these uncertified and untested software patches may alter the election results. During the 2004 presidential election, the Free Press reported that election officials observed technicians from the ES&S voting machine company and Triad computer maintenance company installing uncertified and untested software patches on voting machines in 44 Ohio counties prior to the election. Software patches are usually installed to "update" or change existing software. These software patch updates were considered suspect by election protection activists, in light of all the voting machine anomalies found during the 2004 election in Ohio. The Free Press has learned that Election Systems and Solutions (ES&S) installed the software patches that will affect 4,041,056 registered voters, including those in metropolitan Columbus and Cleveland (click here for spread sheet from verifiedvoting.org). A call to the Ohio Secretary of State's office concerning the software patches was not returned by publication deadline. Previously, the Free Press requests for public records, including voting machine vendor contracts, have been stonewalled by Office Secretary of State John Husted's office through his public records officer Chris Shea. Through other channels, the Free Press has obtained and has posted the possibly illegal full contract online here (see page 17). The contract calls for ES & S technicians and county poll workers to "enter custom codes and interfaces" to the standard election reporting software just as was done with the controversial 2004 Ohio presidential election. Last minute software patches may be deemed "experimental" because that designation does not require certification and testing. Uncertified and untested software for electronic voting systems are presumably illegal under Ohio law. All election systems hardware and software must be tested and certified by the state before being put into use, according to Ohio Revised Code 3506.05. By unilaterally deeming this new software "experimental," Secretary of State Husted was able to have the software installed without any review, inspection or certification by anyone. ES & S, for their part, knows that this software will not be subject to the minimal legally required testing as stated in the contract on page 21 (Section 6.1). The contract specifically states that this software has not been and need not be reviewed by any testing authority at the state or federal level. Yet, it is installed on voting machines that will tabulate and report official election results, which Ohio law forbids. Based on the Free Press reading of the contract, this software is fully developed, being referred as versions 2.0.7.0 and 3.0.1.0. Thus the only thing making this software "experimental" is the fact that it has never been independently certified or tested. In preparation for the upcoming general election in late April, the Free Press began requesting public records from all 88 counties in Ohio in order to build a broad database of every vendor and piece of equipment used in the state of Ohio. Aside from some minor delays, all 88 county jurisdictions have complied. However, the office of the Ohio Secretary of State however, has not complied with any requests for lists of equipment, contracts with vendors, schedules of payment and even the identities of the vendors. The Free Press' public records requests, under ORC 149.43 (The Public Records Act) have been ignored by Chris Shea, presumably acting on behalf of Secretary of State Jon Husted. Now that the Free Press has obtained the contract, it seems clear that the secretary of state's office was hiding these last minute "experimental" uncertified software installations. On page 19 of the contract, terms require the various county boards of elections to purchase additional software from ES & S if they are not compatible with this new "experimental" statewide tabulation and reporting system. This unfunded mandate clause illegally bypasses individual counties rights to make their own purchasing determinations. The controversial software will create simple .csv files like those produced by spreadsheet programs for input into the statewide tabulation system. According to the terms of the contract, data security is the responsibility of each local board of elections: "…each county will be responsible for the implementation of any security protocols" (see page 21 of the contract). Most county boards of elections do not have their own IT departments and are reliant on private partisan contractors to maintain and program the electronic voting systems. These piecemeal implementations of security protocols would also be untested and uncertified. Voting rights activists believe this whole scheme may create a host of new avenues of attack on the integrity of the electronic vote counting system. The untested and uncertified "experimental" software itself may be malware. Public trust in the electronic vote counting system has emerged as the key issue in the Ohio presidential election. The Free Press will be updating this breaking story as more information is obtained and analyzed, so stay tuned. The story for now is that the Secretary of State in the key swing state in the 2012 presidential has installed "experimental" uncertified and untested software to count a large portion of the Ohio vote. -- Recent Election Issues Articles Opening of polls in Franklin County on Election Day November 6, 2012 Free Press staff Fitrakis returns from federal court hearing on Ohio voting machine software patch November 6, 2012 Free Press staff Good news for OSU students trying to vote November 6, 2012 Free Press staff Video of vote flipping in Pennsylvania November 6, 2012 Free Press staff Bob Fitrakis from the hearing today November 6, 2012 Ecological Options Network Reports from election observers and voters: Broken scanners and too many provisionals November 6, 2012 Free Press staff Nearly 1000 voters forced to vote provisional in a single Franklin county precinct November 6, 2012 Gerry Bello and Nicole Ware Breaking News: Judge denies request to stop illegal software patches November 6, 2012 Free Press staff Election watch report from Columbus Ohio November 6, 2012 Free Press Stafff Action at the Driving Park polling site November 6, 2012 Free Press staff The Battleground States: True Vote Sensitivity Analysis November 6, 2012 Richard Charnin Woman not allowed to vote November 6, 2012 Free Press staff Another Husted dirty trick in Ohio: Secretary of State's Office admits direct reporting function of untested election software November 5, 2012 Gerry Bello and Bob Fitrakis OHIO – VOTE HEIST 2012? November 5, 2012 Ecological Options Network Invoices prove Romney-related voting company Hart InterCivic does maintenance on Cincinnati voting machines November 5, 2012 Gerry Bello and Bob Fitrakis Edited November 6, 2012 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 And I’m worried about you patients; // END COLBY LEN ONLY WORRIES ABOUT HIMSELF (COLBY TRIBUTE BELOW) You indicated that adding 10 or 12 electoral votes to the 235 assigned to Romney by a website would have given him the 270 (or 269) needed to carry the election; the thought that you might have to calculate your patients’ dosages is a bit unnerving. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2218398/Nurse-admits-administering-fatal-dose-salt-premature-baby-denies-falling-asleep-duty.html?ito=feeds-newsxml Will "experimental" software patches affect the Ohio vote? by Bob Fitrakis and Gerry Bello October 31, 2012 Why did the Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's office, in an end run around Ohio election law, have "experimental" software patches installed on vote counting tabulators in up to 39 Ohio counties? Voting rights activists are concerned that these uncertified and untested software patches may alter the election results. As previously noted The undocumented claims of a proven xxxx (Fitrakis) don't prove anything. And of course Obama won not only the election but Ohio, Colorado and Pennsylvania. A matter a fact he won every state the RCP averages indicated he would, the only major difference is that he will probably win Florida where he was projected to lose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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