Hugo's Revenge

Investors Business Daily ^ | 11/03/06 | Investors Business Daily

[melt]

Elections: If missing smart-cards and multiple ballot-casting buttons aren't enough trouble from electronic voting machines, the one complication we don't need is a foreign predator at the controls.

Think it can't happen? Well, it already has, with Smartmatic, an electronic voting firm that owes its presence in U.S. markets to Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez's abundant cash.

Until 2004, Smartmatic was a little-known startup in Boca Raton, Fla., run by two 30-year-old Venezuelan engineers who claimed their only motivation was to prevent another 2000 Florida hanging-chad controversy. They were worth at most $2 million and operated out of one of their father's houses in Boca Raton.

They had a sudden change of fortune after Chavez got involved. The two Venezuelans, Antonio Mujica and Alfredo Anzola, won gigantic contracts from Venezuela's government for Chavez's recall referendum in 2004. It was a referendum he declared he would win no matter what. And, given the fraud charged in the aftermath, he apparently did.

Mathematicians Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard and Roberto Rigobon of MIT, who studied the referendum, declared it fraudulent with 99% certainty, pointing to manipulation of the Smartmatic software in the counting room, where two-way electronic communication seemed to take place as the votes were tallied.

Shortly after that, Smartmatic bought up U.S.-based Sequoia Voting Systems for $16 million, flush with $120 million in Venezuelan cash. They made sure to thank their biggest client.

They took out a front page ad in the New York Times specifically touting the Venezuela referendum, "free of hanging chads," something that doubled as spin control for Chavez as a firestorm of controversy over fraud swirled in Caracas.

[melt]

Ah, c'mon--- the New York Times says you can trust Hu"gore" "Chad"vez...

[operation clinton cleanup]

Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter must be involved in some way..

http://www.sequoiavote.com/article.php?id=58

[Mike Darancette]

Think it can't happen? Well, it already has, with Smartmatic, an electronic voting firm that owes its presence in U.S. markets to Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez's abundant cash.

I hear the RATZ screaming about Diebold making voting machines but not about Hugo's company.

[happinesswithoutpeace]

From the article:

"If U.S. e-voting goes badly, Americans will avoid voting, like Venezuelans."

I don't think so.

[Nateman]

Exit polls showed Chavez losing massively, plus lots of voters complaining about the machines not registering their vote properly. Chavez delayed and delayed the recall vote some more until he could be sure the fix was in, with Jimmy Carters approval no less!