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

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

[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

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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.

Flame Bait

[AlgUSF]

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