Federal judge Gregory Frost has rejected Ohio Green Party congressional candidate and longtime election activist Bob Fitrakis’s lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. Fitrakis alleged that Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software Inc.’s software contains a backdoor patch inserted by Ohio officials that could allow vote tampering.
Fitrakis is no stranger to election fraud allegations. In 2004 he, Harvey Wasserman and Steven Rosenfeld alleged widespread electoral fraud in the presidential election. In 2006, the trio published “What Happened In Ohio?: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election,” in which they explored the various types of alleged electoral fraud.
In court today Fitrakis demanded that “the illegal patches implanted in critical electronic vote count software be immediately removed.”
Husted for his part has garnered a reputation as a vote suppressor in the lead-up to the 2012 elections, limiting early voting and making provisional ballots more difficult with more paperwork. “He is the Secretary of Suppression,” State Senator Nina Turner said on MSNBC Monday, “He tried to suppress every single vote in this state.”
The Fitrakis lawsuit press release read, “Widespread abuses reported in www.freepress.org and elsewhere indicate an election already tainted by systematic disenfranchisement and computerized vote count rigging.”
U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost scheduled the evidentiary hearing for this morning, causing Husted’s spokesperson Matt McClellan to call Fitrakis’s allegations “ridiculous.” Husted argued that the installed “reporting tool” is an experimental program, and therefore not subject to state and federal certification and testing results. He claimed that the reporting tool, which was installed in two dozen Ohio counties, reports the results of votes to ease the work done by poll workers. If there is some funny business in Ohio, Husted will likely be the lightning rod. But Judge Frost believes that Fitrakis presented opinions and theories instead of concrete evidence of a voting machine “backdoor” hack.
November 06, 2012 at 4:08 pm, Complaints about voter IDs, ballots, long lines in US election - Reuters | Batyam.co.ilBatyam.co.il said:
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November 06, 2012 at 9:45 pm, Tally Briggs said:
This is insane. A simple algorithm on the tabulator: If A > B, then A = Romney; If B > A, then B = Romney. Husted has defied every court order on voter suppression. Why would he skip the easiest way to steal the most votes with the least way to trace it? Where are the FORENSIC PROGRAMERS TO AUDIT THE CODE? Or sequester the machines and hand count the ballots like they do everywhere else on the planet where there are elections.
November 06, 2012 at 10:01 pm, David Kearns said:
I absolutely agree with what you are saying. He has violated pretty much every election law there is and we need to hand count the ballots just the way Ireland does now. And this is insane. You cannot go adding uncertified patches day-of election. Having said all this: guess what, not one government agency will listen to you for saying that; not one media outlet will ever let you get on the air and voice this, apart from Thom Hartman. The DOJ will not return your calls. Newspaper editors will ram their fists in their own A33es sideways rather than deal with you. This abuse will go on for years; the dumb indifference of the collective bovine American public, so too, will also proceed a-pace, according to some diabolical plan not of their own choosing. But congratulations, you're on the team now; one of us. Welcome to the fight.
November 21, 2012 at 2:49 pm, Griffin Sowards said:
If you employ an IT tech who doesn't believe in electronic voting machine fraud, you should be looking for a new IT tech.