The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., the same one that raised the alarm over Dubai investing in American ports, is investigating alleged ties of voting software firm Smartmatic to the Venezuelan government.
The ties consist of a $200,000 investment by the Venezuelan government in a smaller company which was later purchased by Smartmatic, placing one Venezuelan official on Smartmatic’s board of directors. Further . . .
With a windfall of some $120 million from its first three contracts with Venezuela, Smartmatic then bought the much larger and more established Sequoia Voting Systems, which now has voting equipment installed in 17 states and the District of Columbia.
However, Venezuela denies improprieties
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.
True or not, the bigger question is, if one board member on a start-up software company merits a federal investigation, what about the company that dominates US voting – Diebold -- whose CEO is a major contributor to the Republican party, and whose machines are already suspected of widespread electoral tampering?
To this, a hapless Democrat replies
The government should know who owns our voting machines; that is a national security concern,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who asked the Bush administration in May to review the Sequoia takeover.
Evidently, Diebold's ownership of most of the nation's voting machines, and its ties to the Republican party, are not considered a "national security concern."
There is another slant to this story, too.
Since its takeover by Smartmatic in March 2005, Sequoia has worked aggressively to market its voting machines in Latin America and other developing countries. “The goal is to create the world’s leader in electronic voting solutions,” said Mitch Stoller, a company spokesman.
Why the sudden interest in electoral software in Latin America, and what is really meant by “voting solutions?"
After all the publicity about Diebold, perhaps electronic voting is now recognized to be the easiest way to guarantee victory in elections everywhere.
But the Committee on Foreign Investment won’t be looking into anything important like that. It will just perform its predictable role of raising fears of foreign presence on US soil.
“The goal is to create the world’s leader in electronic voting solutions,”
Far more dangerous than voting fraud, which no doubt takes place but can't always be concealed, is the network effect of standardization combined with the monopoly effect of patents.
Control the hardware (or the infrastructure) and the software (or the means of communication) and sooner or later nothing functions without you.
BTW, great looking new site:-)
It's all thanks to akber . . .
he worked very hard to get this up and running and he's put a lot of his own resources in it, all without compensation.
thanks, akber!
fantastic looking site im happy to see this and look forward to see stories not carried by other news sites, keep up the good work!
QRSWAVE,
The new blog is beautiful (tears in eyes).... ;)
From a friend.
PS: I like the 'anonymous' option, like we had before. More people are willing to post, even if that means we'll have more trolls, but trolls like Miss R and company make the discussions 'lively'.
Chavez invested a lot in making e-voting secure in Venezuela. He did this because 80% of people vote for him, while the voting bureaucracy is staffed from people from the 20% who hate him. Accurate voting machines favour Chavez. So if Chavez' voting machines are rolling out across America it can only be a good thing for us, the majority.
Chavez invested a lot in
Chavez invested a lot in making e-voting secure in Venezuela. He did this because 80% of people vote for him, while the voting bureaucracy is staffed from people from the 20% who hate him. Accurate voting machines favour Chavez. So if Chavez' voting machines are rolling out across America it can only be a good thing for us, the majority.
Seabhcan (not verified) | Mon, 2006-10-30 15:58
You're FULL OF SHIT you know Seabhcan.
The Zionist "jews" are SHIFTING THE BLAME. The DIEBOLD machines are OPERATED AND OWED by the Khazars. They were "field tested" in the previous "election" and even then reports by TECHNICAL people indicated they were fraudulent.
That was YEARS AGO. The "secret" has gotten on the streets and they Ashkenazis are kicking sand in people's eyes, diverting ATTENTION AWAY from themselves onto their few "rivals" Hugo Chavez.
If you made an ignorant comment, that's fine, since I'm correcting you now. But if you INTENTIONALLY did it, go fuck off!
Some of us are extremely EDUCATED. Now go piss off on some flowers, dudette!
Sorry Seabhcan, I read 'too quickly' and misread it that you said Chavez invested 80% into DIEBOLD.
My apologies. I deal with shitheads ALL DAY that try to shift the blame on Chavez and Fidel and company.
Yeah, I deal with the "top brass" -- although strategically and tactfully -- and the fact that SO MANY IGNORANT STUPID AMERICANS/CANADIANS/AUSTRALIANS/BRITIANS are spewing the horse-shit that the Racist Zionist Khazars feed them gets to me.
So I read your post too quickly. I've seen so many comments RECENTLY in the "news" (lamestream media) that are DIRECTLY saying Chavez is going to use the DIEBOLDS to "fix" his elections.
Which is plainly horseshit, since both you and I know the FAKE "Jews" (WHITE EUROPEAN ASHKENAZI KHAZARS) both own and control.
They do this so often, and I thought to myself, "Oh my goodness, not another parrot...."
>>>>>>>>>>> Previous quote: >>>>>>>>>
I call BULLSHIT! -- Chavez and Zionists are opposites!
Chavez invested a lot in
Chavez invested a lot in making e-voting secure in Venezuela. He did this because 80% of people vote for him, while the voting bureaucracy is staffed from people from the 20% who hate him. Accurate voting machines favour Chavez. So if Chavez' voting machines are rolling out across America it can only be a good thing for us, the majority.
Seabhcan (not verified) | Mon, 2006-10-30 15:58
You're FULL OF SHIT you know Seabhcan.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"lamestream media" - I LOVE IT!