Posted on 10/28/2008 8:55:51 AM PDT by george76
The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez.
The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation said.
The inquiry on the eve of the midterm elections is being conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, the same panel of 12 government agencies that reviewed the abortive attempt by a company in Dubai to take over operations at six American ports earlier this year.
The committee’s formal inquiry into Smartmatic and its subsidiary, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., was first reported Saturday in The Miami Herald.
Officials of both Smartmatic and the Venezuelan government strongly denied yesterday that President Chávez’s administration, which has been bitterly at odds with Washington, has any role in Smartmatic.
“The government of Venezuela doesn’t have anything to do with the company aside from contracting it for our electoral process,” the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, said last night.
Smartmatic was a little-known firm with no experience in voting technology before it was chosen by the Venezuelan authorities to replace the country’s elections machinery ahead of a contentious referendum that confirmed Mr. Chávez as president in August 2004.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Oh, they decided to look into that NOW. Just came to their attention I guess.
The government of Venezuela owns Smartmatic through some intermediaries.
And the half-life of this investigation after the election of Obama is......
“Oh, they decided to look into that NOW. Just came to their attention I guess.”
We’ll soon get word that they should have the problem solved by the 2012 elections.
The greater threat to our nation’s security comes not from Dubai and its pro-Western government, but from Venezuela, where software engineers with links to the leftist, anti-American regime of Hugo Chávez are programming electronic voting machines
Consider the lack of confidence Venezuelans have in their voting system. Anti-Chávez groups have such little faith in Smartmatic’s machines that they refuse to run candidates in elections anymore as reports surface of fraud and irregularities from Chávez’s 2004 victory in a recall referendum.
Smartmatic International is owned by a Netherlands corporation, which is in turn owned by a Curacao corporation, which is in turn held by a number of Curacao trusts controlled by proxy holders who represent unnamed investors, almost certainly among them Venezuelans Mugica and Anzola and possibly others.
Why Smartmatic has chosen yet again to abuse the corporate form apparently to conceal the nationality and identity of its true owners is a question that should worry anyone who votes using one of its machines.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/forget_dubai_worry_about_smart.html
Uh oh.
Thanks, George.
Ping.
This was on yahoo news last evening:
“...it should come as little surprise that over in West Virginia, the “early voting” procedures have resulted in numerous complaints that the e-voting machines selected the wrong candidate.”
votes switching which direction? All the stories I heard so far is that they voted Obama and the machine “switched” to mcCain
The whole charade in Florida in 2000 served to convince people that mechanical card readers are flawed, and software voting would be more secure.
Right.
It was a con job.
It has been known at least, since 2006.
Brand Replies to Smartmatic
Richard Brand sends along the following response in his ongoing debate with Smartmatic:
VENEZUELA INVESTMENT IN VOTING FIRM WAS NO ROUTINE LOAN
In his letter to the editor of The Miami Herald of April 29 [2006], Jack Blaine, the president of Smartmatic international and Sequoia Voting Systems, asserts that the Venezuelan government held a “28-percent nonpermanent, minority equity position in Bizta [Corporation] via a routine loan” at the time Bizta and Smartmatic were hired to provide electronic voting services for a recall referendum on President Hugo Chavez. To describe the transaction as a “loan” where Venezuela merely held Bizta stock as collateral turns basic principles of corporate finance on their head.
Lenders don’t hold equity positions in debtor companies as collateral to secure their loans, because should the debtor be unable to pay back the loan, then the stock held as collateral is necessarily worthless. Debt gets paid before equity. The only rational reason for the Venezuelan government to hold an equity position in Bizta is to
influence Bizta’s management decisions. This is underscored by the fact that Venezuela chose Omar Montilla, an electronic voting machine expert who worked for Chavez’s 1997 presidential campaign, as its representative on Bizta’s board of directors. Additionally, Bizta’s official Venezuelan corporate registry documents describe the
transaction as an equity sale, and not as a loan.
Bizta’s founders Antonio Mugica and Alfredo Anzola have turned their attention to their other companies, Smartmatic International and its new subsidiary Sequoia Voting Systems. Millions of Americans who use Sequoia voting machines should be deeply concerned about this.
Sincerely,
Richard Brand
It wasn’t mentioned in the article.
Gee, we outsource most of our software development to India. Except for voting machines. THAT goes to the world-renowned tech geniuses of Chavez's Venezuela.
Didn’t we talk about this four years ago?
There should be NO foreign interest in anything that has to do the with voting process in the US....EVER. Where it be the voting machines, software, printing of ballots, NOTHING.
Oh, and we’re supposed to think it’s just coincidence that:
1) Twice (2005 2006) unrepentent marxist domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, has been an honored speaker at education reform forums in Caracas, Venezuela managed by a Venezuelen government panel featuring Hugo Chavez and others with the point to Ayers speeches being to acknowledge the importance of Ayers’ own radical brand of educating the young (in Chicago’s Public Schools) to the success of Hugo Chavez’ Marxist Bolivarian REVOLUTION.
2) The personal computer from recently slain FARC rebel leader, Raul Reyes, had on it records of the $300 million Hugo Chavez has given FARC, thank you notes from Hugo Chavez dating back to 1992, uranium purchasing records, and directions on how to make a Dirty Bomb, and a report from rebels that “gringoes” have said the next U.S. president will be Obama and Obama will not support pro-U.S. Colombian Pres. Álvaro Uribe Vélez’ “Plan Colombia”, nor will Obama sign the Colombian Free Trade (CFT) agreement (that is presently endorsed by the U.S.).
3) Ayers’ wife and fellow unrepentent marxist terrorist, Bernardine Dorn, is involved with Ayers’ radical education agends in the U.S., she has accompanied Ayers on the “education” oriented trips to Caracas, she speaks fluent spanish, and she is rumored to be the “gringo” operative from the Obama campaign who communicates with Colombian FARC rebels.
4) The software that runs the Smartmatic electronic voting machines located in polling places in 17 U.S. states and the District of Columbia was programmed by two Venezuelens who own the Smartmatic Company that in Venezuelen newspapers has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez.
5) Oh, and Bill Ayers is “just a guy I know from my neighborhood” and “his kids and my kids go to the same school” says Obama.
Yeah, it’s ALL just coincidence...Right! (sarc)
Probably well before even 2006. Potential voting problems and fraud have been regular topics on this site for years. Much more important to us than it was to the Bush White House for 8 years, which brings us to this mess.
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