Voting machines, election fraud and Mitt Romney, a recipe for tyranny?

Does my vote count? Up until a few days ago, I thought as most Americans do that it did, but it appears that I may be wrong. A report from Forbes on October 20th this year says that the Romney family owns through a long chain of subsidiaries the company that makes the voting machines that are to be used in Ohio and Florida. The article can be found here. I believe this to be highly suspect, especially given the campaign attention placed on Ohio and Florida this year, two states that have electronic voting machines in place.

Can electronic voting machines be tampered with? Yes, says Professor Ed Felton of Princeton University, who developed a computer virus that does just that. It was just a test, but it proved the extreme vulnerability of the system. If this is still true, and I believe it still is, then our voting rights are in jeopardy. 

Vlogger RP4409 recently posted a video showing testimony of voting machine programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis testifying that he wrote such software to do exactly that, change vote tabulations, and that he was asked to do so by a politician!

The video above also shows Professor Felton showing how easy these machines can be infected with a virus designed to change how the votes are counted. The main problem is these machines cannot be made to counter this attack. The code change can be updated via a voting administrator's key card, which could be stolen, or replaced with an infected one, and then used to infect voting machines in a county, or even statewide, everywhere a voting machine resides. 

Here, in Oregon, we have mail in ballots, counted by machines after verifying by hand that the signatures match the one on record. The Oregon Vote By Mail manual states that a reconciliation must be done to see if the number of votes the machines reports match the number of votes received, and report any discrepancies. However, if the voting machine has been tampered with, the ratio of votes may change without the total number being affected. Auditors might miss the discrepancy if the vote is close, and it might be due to the tampering itself. I suspect this November's election will be close given these events.

Election fraud is serious business. The ruling class uses voter participation to justify its rule. If that justification has been tampered with, then it is safe to say such rule is no longer justified. If the ruling parties are using election fraud to select the ruler, the voting public should be in an uproar! If you, the voting public, value your vote and feel it is important, you had best investigate these allegations for yourself. 

As a freedom lover and Libertarian thinker, these events further undermine my confidence that the ruling class have my interests in mind. If voting machines are being used to enable election fraud, I would argue that voting has become irrelevant. If the above allegations prove to be true, the ruling class are just fudging the numbers anyway. If they have no votes to count, they can't create them, fudge them, or tamper with them, nor can they claim they rule you, as you have not given them your consent. Besides, a free man needs no rulers, he rules himself. How many times does the State have to lie and get caught before its people no longer tolerate such behavior?

As always, your comments are appreciated. Tell me what you think. I welcome debate, as long as it is logical and reasoned.