Mitt Romney's son Tagg's equity fund is heavily invested in a firm controlling electronic voting machines in crucial swing states.1 The private equity fund, Solamere Group, is a major investor in H.I.G., a firm that bought Hart InterCivic just last year. Hart InterCivic owns voting machines in the critical swing states of Colorado and Ohio. 

In the run-up to the last Presidential election, officials in Ohio uncovered "critical flaws" in Hart's voting machines.2 In a scathing report, officials say Hart “failed to meet any of the 12 basic best practices.” In the years since, Hart has refused to upgrade its product. Let’s change that.

Tell Hart InterCivic to guard against election fraud by upgrading the security on all its swing-state electronic voting machines before the November 6th election.

In 2007, the Ohio Secretary of State commissioned a study to investigate Hart’s machines. Its conclusion: Hart’s machines performed “poorly” because unauthorized individuals could gain access to memory cards and “easily tamper” with core voting data. Hart scored a “zero” on the 12-step baseline comparison because it “failed to meet any of the 12 basic best practices” necessary to have a secure system.3

H.I.G. employees are the eleventh-largest corporate donors to Mitt Romney’s campaign -- ahead of even Bain Capital, and all but one of the company’s American directors have donated to Mitt Romney's campaign.1

We should be clear that there's no evidence at this point that Hart InterCivic or its directors intend to steal the election for Mitt Romney. However, when a firm responsible for such a vital part of the democratic process is so evidently partisan, we need to have another check in place. In light of both H.I.G.’s extensive ties to the Romney campaign, and Hart's flawed record, we believe that the machines should meet the basic best practices of election security.