Venezuelan Interest In U.S. Voting Software

A number of readers wrote in about a U.S. federal investigation into the Venezulean ownership of Sequoia Voting Systems, which makes voting machines used in 17 states and the District of Columbia. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States wonders whether the anti-U.S. government of Hugo Chávez could be trying to influence the U.S. midterm elections. From the article: "Government officials familiar with the Smartmatic inquiry said they doubted that even if the Chávez government was some kind of secret partner in the company, it would try to influence elections in the United States. But some of them speculated that the purchase of Sequoia could help Smartmatic sell its products in Latin America and other developing countries, where safeguards against fraud are weaker."

Comments

Ridiculous

[Joey7F]

I want people trying to influence this election unfairly to be Americans

Re:Ridiculous

[senatorpjt]

Yeah, it's strange that once one of the voting-machine companies might be controlled by a leftist, suddenly they can't be trusted.

Re:Ridiculous

[dangitman]

He's talking about the Republicans suddenly getting interested in voting fraud when leftists might be involved in the machines (Venezuela), but ignoring the problem when their own right-wing stooges are involved (Diebold). You may want to try reading comprehension before you get outraged.

Re:Ridiculous

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

The USA played a part in the attempted Venezulean coup in 2002.

Hey the US was just celebrating the ten year anniversary of the Coup held by "friend of democracy" Hugo Chavez.

Re:Ridiculous

[robertaas]

Venezuelans are indeed Americans. On which continent did you think Venezuela is located?

Oh fucking please

[theolein]

Chavez might be a populist loudmouth fucker, but he is pretty open about what he wants and what his intentions are, not like the current crop of corrupt, deceiptful pigs running the USA, who resort to vague accusations like this one in times of elections because they finally realised that they fucked up across the board and that people really hate them for it.

Re:Oh fucking please

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Exactly.

Let's investigate the only E-Vote vendor who is NOT under control of our own thugs.

Re:Oh fucking please

[Sique]

But if anything, Hugo Chavez would actually be interested in keeping the current administration in power. It keeps the oil prices high (good for Hugo Chavez), it is so incompetent, that any uprising it tries to initiate against Hugo Chavez is easily defeated (the last one was gone after 48 hrs), and it gives him enough populist argumentation to use any means to stay in power and also suppress any other uprising.

I also think that al-Qaida would vote G.W.Bush: Never ever have the recruiting possibilities have be better, never ever have the arguments of al-Qaida being existant better. Never ever have the means and possibilities of getting money from the Arab world being better due to high income on oil and an general feeling of being waged an undeclared war against from the U.S..

Never ever have allies of the U.S. being more alienated from the U.S., making "divide et impera" the most easiest ever. Never ever was the danger of the own population being in favor of U.S. so minimal. The U.S. was actually managing to get the same people of Iran, who were burning candles on the streets in condolence to the victims of 9/11 and thus expressing their sympathy for the U.S., now being nearly unified against the same U.S..

If I was the U.S. administration, I would recommend to hush up any possible ties between Sequoia voting machines and Venezuela.

Re:Oh fucking please

[h4rm0ny]

You've ignored the possibility that Chavez actually despises the actions of the Bush regime and genuinely would like to see a better US foreign policy.

Not everyone is solely interested in power.

Re:Oh fucking please

[Kuciwalker]

You've ignored the possibility that Chavez actually despises the actions of the Bush regime and genuinely would like to see a better US foreign policy.

Not everyone is solely interested in power. Yes, I would ignore that possibility.

Re:Oh fucking please

[doom]

Anonymous wrote:

Bullshit! If you can read Spanish, I suggest you read his statements about what is going on in his country. Read how he has increased security (increased murders to 10,000 per year in a country of 25 million), provided money and hospitals for the poor (while increasing the poverty rate even while reaping record oil profits), improved the economy (which has >10% inflation and small growth even while reaping record oil profits), and has increased personal freedom (by introducing communist style price controls and jailing reporters).

Wow... and all of those accusations have occured in the local Venezuelan press? That's pretty cool, considering we've got US pundits trying to claim that Chavez is censoring the press.

I don't know much about it myself, but one of those silly leftist writers, Tariq Ali, is going around saying things like this about Chavez:

And what people do not seem to understand, within the establishment in the United States and its state media hacks, is that you can have political leaders today in parts of the world who are extremely popular because they give the people what they promised to give them. And politics elsewhere has become so isolated and alienating from the population that people just don't expect this anymore. And I think this is what explains the popularity of Chavez. And, of course, using oil money to push through mega-spending on health, on education, on building homes for the poor, free universities for the poor, this is not permitted in this world. He does it, and at the same time he challenges U.S. foreign policy in a very sharp way.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

..where safeguards against fraud are weaker."

Do they run open source software or something?

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

"where safeguards against fraud are weaker"

Is that supposed to be a joke?

Only in America

[phleb3]

I think that the real problem is that Venezuela is in the doghouse of Bush and Company. Diebold which is held by a right wing company is not subjected to this scrutiny.

Re: Only in America

[Black Parrot]

> Diebold which is held by a right wing company is not subjected to this scrutiny.

Our country has a long history of the FBI keeping an eye on people for no reason other than liberal views, while jumping in bed with the most extreme sort of right-wingers in South America.

Re:Only in America

[dangitman]

I'm not sure why you need a cite for that. It's very widely known:

Walden "Wally" O'Dell, the chairman of the board and chief executive of Diebold. For years, O'Dell has given generously to Republican candidates. Last September, he held a packed $1,000-per-head GOP fundraiser at his 10,800-square-foot mansion. He has been feted as a guest at President Bush's Texas ranch, joining a cadre of "Pioneers and Rangers" who have pledged to raise more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign. Most memorably, O'Dell last fall penned a letter pledging his commitment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President."

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/20 04/03/03_200.html

Many, many more details at that link.

Re:Only in America

[bigmammoth]

Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc said in 2003 he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." from numerous reports including democracy now If you accept traditional definitions of left-right and that Bush is to the right then I think it would be fair to say that Diebold is a right wing company only with that piece of information.

If we were to further research the matter I think we would quickly discover that the top of most corporate hierarchy's are right leaning in that they represent the interest of concentrated power outside democratic control. Self interest/self preservation make corporations lean to the right by what I would consider traditional definitions of right and left, but maybe your running on different metaphors and or language syntax.

Re:Only in America

[Potatomasher]

"That guy is republican, so he must be evil !"
"He's a left-wing hippy pot-smoking democrat !"
God when will you people stop with the partisanship, and start focusing on the issues which actually matter !
Face it, there's morons on both sides of the fence. Politics is not an epic battle between the forces of good and evil ! It would be easier for things to be so clear cut, but in reality life is a million different shades of gray.

So when you vote in november, just try to elect the person who seems to make the most sense and represents what you stand for as a human being, AFTER having heard their ideas/platforms/etc. And heck, if both turn out to be the wrong choice for you, vote independent ! Its only a wasted vote if you don't show up !

Chavez isn't a saint, but Bush sure is the devil..

[lixee]

Before you start bashing Chavez, please take the time to watch "The revolution will not be televised". It's an award winning documentary by an Irish crew who happened to be in Caracas when the coup against Chavez happened back in 2002.

Knowledge is the main weapon in this day and age!

Hold on a second

[Black Parrot]

Let's take care of the known threats to fair elections at home before we get too wrapped up in hypothetical foreign conspiracies.

Though a move to open systems would help with either.

Re:Hold on a second

[RealGrouchy]

Let's take care of the known threats to fair elections at home before we get too wrapped up in hypothetical foreign conspiracies.

Hell, if it takes Chavez to get the US back to pen-and-paper ballots, then all the better.

Is there some way we can get Kim Jong-Il to invest in Diebold?

- RG>

What about investigating Diebold?

[angryflute]

Why won't the U.S. government investigate Diebold as well?

Poster child of FUD

[orzetto]

A GOP risking to lose an election, a less popular than ever PotUS, a largely announced electoral defeat: so let's try to blame the machines, and while we're at it Chávez too. It only surprises me they did not mention the company's CEO is an alias used by Osama Bin Laden or some other scarecrow.

The article also mentions (in the second page) the controversy about Chávez' re-election's, but fail to mention that election's result was UN-certified (unlike someone else's) and the guy in charge of UN controls was Jimmy Carter, not Fidel Castro.

Election fixing

[phizman]

Nah, he just wants to fix his own elections just like the Republicans do. Damn you diebold!

Re:Election fixing

[God of Lemmings]

Fix his own elections? Its entirely likely that he already has.

[url:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_Voting_S ystems]

I suspect that he realizes that George has done the same here,
and is basically doing the same to get George out, because he
believes George to be the Devil, or at least a reasonable facimile.

These machines have the same problems as Diebold, and a few of their own.

DRE, just like the Accuvote machines, small difficult to read typeface, and so on.
[url:www.votersunite.org/info/CorrectingSequoia.pd f]

All the noise going on here about it could be motivated by "certain interested parties",
to do a number of things, such as:

distract the public towards a different manufacturer, taking the pressure off of Diebold,

Throw more bad press at Chavez,

and attack the Sequoia machines because they present a perceived threat to their regional
control given by Diebold and other voting machines.

Flame Bait

[AlgUSF]

I want to mod this article flame bait. Left-wing koolaid drinkers vs. right-wing koolaid drinkers. :-)

Re:Chavez isn't a saint, but Bush sure is the devi

[malsdavis]

I would thoroughly recommend this documentory/movie. It is definitely not an anti-Bush propaganda film produced by the Democrats like many (who probably haven't seen it) say it is (it was produced by Spanish reporters for a start) and I would probably take some bits of the movie "with a pinch of salt", but they do have some amazing footage of a very odd event (or non-event as most have never heard of it) in modern history. If you like hearing about conspiracy theories than this is one, albeit focused on different factions conspiring against the people of Venezula rather than the U.S.A. (like in most conspiracy theory stories).

Another, kind of similar, movie called "Death of a president" is also quite insightful into the attitudes of the federal American political psyche. It is a British film focusing on the aftermath of an assassination of Bush. It also has some amazing imagary, this time Forest Gump style effects where actors appear to be on-stage with the president at events. Again it is definitely not an "anti-Bush" film, rather it examines how all sides use the obviously fictitious event for their own aims and - with both movies - they really show in the end the only people f%#ked over are the innocent people caught up in meddling by the higher powers.

Torrent link to Chavez: The Revolution ...

[mugwumpus]

http://www.chomskytorrents.org/DownloadTorrent.php ?TorrentID=1516 An astonishing documentary.

Maybe a bit predictable - but don't dismiss it!

[GuardianBob420]

While you may have a point, you may want to read up a bit on what has actually been uncovered regarding electronic voting manipulation by the 'Right':
http://weazlsrevenge.blogspot.com/2006/10/sign-of- things-to-come-in-november.html

Safeguards against fraud in Latin America

[Acer500]

I hope so. I'm from Uruguay, and elections here are MUCH better safeguarded than the ones in the US - for one, there is a paper trail.

For the 2000 elections I was a representative for a small party and was an observer at the vote counting (there was an observer at each polling station for every party in most urban areas, plus independant observers). It was of course voluntary work (non-paid).

Let me know if such measures are implemented in the US - last I heard, they aren't. I was proud to be a watchman of our democratic process, and this is South freaking America.

Unfortunately, countries such as Venezuela or Cuba (or the US) don't inspire in me the same confidence.