{Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org}
The CEO of Smartmatic Inc., Antonio Mujica, has been denied a tourist visa by the US embassy and will not be allowed to return to the United States according to a recent report in VCRISIS, a Venezuelan news source.
Smartmatic Inc. is the Florida-registered, Venezuelan-owned parent corporation of Sequoia Voting Systems, one of the leading voting machine companies in the US. Its ownership has also been tied to Hugo Chavez and other shadowy multi-national organizations.
No reason is given for denying renewal of Mujica’s visa in the VCRISIS article which describes an agitated confrontation with US Embassy officials. According to the story, Mujica “argued that he was legal, that he had an important company in the USA and that he had to travel with urgency to that country.”
Sequoia Voting Systems was recently purchased by Smartmatic from a UK firm for $16 million. The surprisingly small sale price has brought into question the stability of Sequoia Voting Systems, which would seemingly stand ready to make millions of dollars in sales of voting systems around the United States as money from the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) continues to pour out to counties and states. However, the company’s ability to provide technical support to their customers has now come into question as this blogger was recently told by a high level official at a competing American-owned voting machine company.
Sequoia is also involved in a lawsuit filed by attorney Paul Lehto in Snohomish County, Washington. The suit calls for the county’s contract to be voided with the company due to the proprietary “trade secret” software used by the company. Lehto has published a report detailing a number of disturbing irregularities found in Snohomish’s general election last November.
The Smartmatic company slogan is “All Things Connected”. Setting aside whether all things being connected in an election system is a good thing (it isn’t), their website has the following text on the front page:
We envision a world where everything will be connected.
And we’re making it happen… here and now.
The irony here…and now…of course, is that the entire situation demonstrates how utterly dysfunctional the election administration in America has become. While US law allows a Venezuelan man to control the secret counting of America’s votes, the US State Department doesn’t consider him fit to enter the country, even temporarily.
Further pointing out the absurdity of it all, in a media release published earlier today at VoteTrustUSA, Ellen Theisen, Executive Director of VotersUnite.Org says, “It’s ironic that when we take vote-counting to Iraq, we take it in the form of paper ballots deposited into clear plastic ballot boxes, but in our own country, vote-counting is in the form of electronic ballots and secret software controlled by a man our government has declared ineligible to set foot in the country.”
Just another day in the decline of American democracy…
May sound silly, but I’d sure as hell rather have a company run by Hugo Chavez counting my votes than a company like Diebold!
*shiver*
Sequoia should change its name permanently to Smartmatic, purge the staff, and then I’ll trust that vote.
ANY vote counted by Chavez means at the least a true democratic vote….and EVERY vote will be counted except maybe those far-right crazy neocons(chuckle)
Eh anyway, it just struck me. 😛
Doug
This is bullshit. :plain:
nice, the right is losing so badly they have no compunctions whatsoever about hacking a blog that criticizes them. Smells like intellectual inferiority, LOL.
Here’s an idea, how about free speech you scum.
You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
Even if Sequoia’s systems are suspected of having been used to commit election fraud (I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute), until something is proven that in no way warrants keeping the principal of its parent company out of the United States. Election fraud in the United States can’t be the reason Mujica was denied a visa.
Why call attention to the shadiness of Sequoia, anyway? That’s the last thing Bush would want to do.
Something else is going on here, connected to U.S.-Venezuelan relations. Are they trying to suggest Chavez was elected by fraud, and that Smartmatic was the reason? Trying to intimidate Chavez, in lieu of "taking him out"? It has to do with politics, not election fraud…but the irony is delicious.
BREAKING:
I have it on good authority from several blogs I read recently, that the Free Enterprise Fund who is sliming Prosecutor Ronnie Earle for indicting Delay, is actually connected to a criminal scam by Vice President Dick Cheney!!!
Just saw it posted.
Free Enterprise CEO Jack Kemp: Official creator of "Attack Dog Ronnie Earle ads" is really a two bit crook!
CEO of Free Enterprise Fund Jack Kemp, was involved in an illegal scandal involving Oil for Food: Which connected all the way to the Vice President’s office and United Nations security council!
Who is Earle’s attacker, Jack Kemp?
Good question….
Doug E.
Why is it when this Administration gets elected by fraud the voting machines are okay, but when somebody is trying to move some oil profit down to help the lower classes, the machines are rigged? watch this, it will happen, another Chavez recall election or coup attempt starting with the MSM hinting that Chavez is illegitimate, maybe it will blow up in their face this time, I hope so
The powerful elites got electronic voting machines installed around the country. I wish someone would do a story about how electronic voting machines quietly were rammed into every voting precinct around the country, with little fanfare, and somehow not passing voting security tests. This is a huge story that no one’s doing. Right now, none of us can say how this happened…it just happened. Although much thought and planning went into it by the elites and corporate America, right under our noses. This may have been the hugest accomplishment of the super-rich minority and influence peddlers who run our country. And there was never a story about it. We’re sitting around with our thumbs up our asses, complaining about the electronic voting machines, but there has never been an investigative historical story about how it happened in the first place. Maybe researching the history of how it happened, who were the players, etc…would lead to getting rid of them, also.
Was there ever a time-chart published, showing a correlation between the installation of electronic voting machines around the country, and the bizarre takeover of the GOP in the House, Senate, & presidential branch?
How come I don’t even have to see a chart, to know that the lines on the graph would BOTH coincide, going upwards??? The line showing the GOP’s increase in winning elections, and the line showing the increase in the installation of electronic voting machines??? Does a chart like this exist anywhere? And why are the stupid Democrats doing nothing about this?
If the administration is trying to say that Chavez was elected fraudulently, and that Smartmatic’s machines were responsible, it will blow up in their faces…even if there was fraud in Venezuela.
Too many states have already decided not to trust Diebold’s machines and others of that ilk…including Sequoia’s. The issue of hackable machines is now too visible. If the Bush administration now claims that Chavez won because of such machinery, it’s a natural segue for the media: "Maybe so…let’s look at the 2004 election through the same prism."
I don’t think they’re that stupid. Then again, they let Jeff Gannon wander around the White House, and they outed Valerie Plame. Could be interesting.
Big Dan #8-#9
Have you brought this up over at Black Box Voting (link here)?
If they are not in the process of investigating that, I think someone there would be eager to get the ball rolling … if they haven’t already … but check it out.
I got a kick out of The Smartmatic company slogan is "All Things Connected".
After reading the book on voting machine history at Black Box Voting (see my post #11 for the Black Box Voting website link where the book is) the connections to crime seems to be the real reason for all things connected.
Vote rigging via defective and traitorously prepared voting machines is the greatest crime never talked about in the press.
It is too much of a challenge to the world view of the neoCon influenced MSM who are the foundation of the right wing party now.
Stick a fork in Bob Ney, he’s done
Bob Ney is going to be joining Tom Delay!
Boy, is there even a way to get a prison-cell big enough for all these jokers?!?!?
And how about that corrupt fraud-ridden Democrat Jefferson in Louisiana!??? Throw the book at them!!!!!!
This stupid agency, this laughable religious based "mafia hitman squad" Council of National Policy is getting torn limb from limb!!!!!
90% of the time the federal investigators find things tied to defrauding indians, and also Israeli based operations what a surprise!!!!
And also added to that fact, is the same people scrambling for their asses including David Safavian are trying to REMOVE democratically elected Hugo Chavez from office, because he embarrasses them!!!!
Hahahahaha imagine that!!!! This "horrible" man embarrasses the pope and everyone else! What stupid bastards, no matter what, these people ain’t bright. If they actually openly ridicule Chavez for FRAUD, that will literally open the can of "no comment" worms that was the 2004 Diebold-ES&S election won’t it?
PASS THE POPCORN!!!!
Doug Eldritch
Black Box Voting has been watching this and similar situations. If you want to read some comments there, here is a link, and another link, just to get you started.
Thanks, DREDD…
For Chavez, to be called an electoral fraud by the Bush administration is like being called ugly by a frog.
It’s just too transparent to be credible. Smartmatic, controlled by Venezuelans, rescues a bankrupt company (and theoretical competitor) with ethical problems, Sequoia, while antitrust regulators look the other way. The Bush administration is looking for a way to discredit an elected foreign leader they don’t like, Chavez, so they refuse to allow Smartmatic’s top boss into the country, without giving a reason.
Can’t work. Sequoia is rat poison to the G.O.P. and to those who dismiss claims of 2000 and 2004 election fraud as "conspiracy theories." The more exposure this story gets, the worse it is for Bush & Co., whether Mujica is a crook or not. There has to me more to the story.
One possibility: We’ll be told that Smartmatic surreptitiously helped Chavez steal the last election in Venezuela, and IT PLANS TO HELP DEMOCRATS STEAL ELECTIONS HERE IN THE FUTURE USING THE SAME METHODS. That would be similar to Mrs. Yang saying to Clint Curtis, "We want to control the Democratic vote in South Florida" (and eliminate
"voter fraud," which seems to be James Baker’s primary concern these days).
Did anyone else hear the bit on NPR about the elections in Iraq.
They briefly mentioned that voters were allowed to cast ballots for "family members" for security reasons. And then moved onto another subject. From what I understood, it meant that I could gather up voting cards and vote on behalf of someone else, allowing some people to cast multiple votes.
I’d like to know what day this came from. It sounds super shady. But the way they reported it, they made it sound pretty benign.
Anybody know what program and day this was on?
I don’t think that President Chavez would help get anyone from the dictator’s family elected. If anything maybe they will free the people of America from the hands of the bush dictatorship?
Its only fair if the usa gets to police the world someone should be able to police the usa.
Big Tobacco,
I found this little diddy Here,
"I am so excited but a flashback from Saddam’s referendum three years ago still hurts; he wanted a 100% as the 99.96% of the previous one shocked the dictator. I was depressed that way and I decided not to go to the voting office and so did the rest of the family but my father was afraid that not going could be dangerous.
He said that maybe one member of the family could go alone and cast votes for the rest of us. We looked at each other thinking who’s going to volunteer to do this ugly job to protect the family. At that moment my father said “it was my generation that caused the misery we’re living in so I’m the one who should do this”.
I couldn’t stop him and I couldn’t utter a word but I felt sad for him; his sacrifice was big and I had teary eyes when I watched him taking our papers and heading out."
I truly believe that voices of today’s GOP are programed in the art of deceit. They are trying to sell us a bad, a dangerous, product. I only ask if they themselves have been programed and did not question the spin that was laid on them, or are they a knowing part of the intent to deceive.
I believe the only people that will benefit from what we have now are the greediest of billionaires psychopaths; those who have no regard for the many they kill or seriously harm. I have to question whatever motivates one who will be sitting here lying to us and attempting to defend a living nightmare crew. I do ask why. The name Armstrong Williams keeps coming to mind. Does anyone think the cons would be too honorable to reach their hand into our treasury funds and hand those funds to those willing to help screw over this nation.
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Armed Forces Radio had been negotiating with Big Ed Schultz of Jones talk radio. Apparently they had found him to be acceptable and planned to start him yesterday. Early in the morning they canceled. It is the fact that they considered him at all that worries me. Big Ed is a loud mouth, gun toting moderate of sorts. He claims that he does not screen his calls but if your one who raises questions about 9-11 or election fraud you will not be allowed on his show a 2nd time. Armed Forces Radio is in the business of keeping our military dis-informed. Where did they see Ed Schultz fitting into that picture? They had to believe that he would be willing to play along with their particular ball game. That is what concerns me. The fact that they came to the conclusion that they might not be able to count on him may only serves to confuse the issue.
Seems like the author has some political motivation. What kind of of source is a "high level official at a competing American-owned voting machine company". Of course it is in the competitions interest to smear Smartmatic, so they can win contracts!!
Inncase you arent aware, VCRISIS is an anti-Chavez site. One of its writers, Boyd, is rabid in his diatribes against Chavez. Its not a site i place any trust in.
The Visa was never declined to Mujica.
This blog post started a definitely interesting conversation, but the origin was a false rumor originated by one of Venezuelan’s irresponsible media outlets. They corrected the mistake, and published a sort of correction 4 days later….