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US govt probes voting machine manufacturer for Chavez ties
By Maxim Kniazkov
AFP
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com 10 31 06
The US government has launched an investigation of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting machines following allegations of its ties to the government of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, officials said.
But the parent company of the firm, Oakland, California-based Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc., vehemently denied the charges Sunday and assured it was fully cooperating with the probe.
"No foreign government or entity -- including Venezuela -- has ever held an ownership stake in Smartmatic," the holding company that acquired Sequoia last year, said Smartmatic chief executive officer Antonio Mugica.
He noted in a statement that the two firms had voluntarily filed a notice with the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a Treasury Department-based regulatory panel, to facilitate a speedy review of Smartmatic's acquisition of Sequoia.
Mugica expressed the hope the review will help "put to rest the baseless but persistent rumors about our ownership."
Boca Raton, Florida-based Smartmatic, which bills itself as an international expert in "secure, reliable and auditable" voting systems, is owned mainly by Mugica, a dual Spanish-Venezuelan national, who holds a nearly 79-percent stake in the firm.
Other leading investors, according to company documents, include Venezuelan-born Alfredo Anzola and Roger Pinate, as well as Jorge Massa, a French-Venezuelan businessman.
The probe follows a request by Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, who last May asked then-treasury secretary John Snow to look into whether Smartmatic had ties to the Venezuelan government.
Some US commentators have expressed concern the acquisition of Sequoia by Smartmatic could have been orchestrated by vehemently anti-American President Chavez, seeking to create mischief with US elections.
Aides to Maloney have pointed out that Smartmatic first found itself at the center of controversy in 2004, when the Chavez government selected it to provide voting machines for a presidential recall referendum -- which Chavez critics claim was riddled with fraud -- that ultimately allowed the president to remain in power.
In pursuing that venture, Smartmatic teamed up with a Venezuelan software company, Bitza, which at the time was 28-percent owned by the Chavez government, the aides said.
Questions about possible ties between Sequoia and the Venezuelan government arose again last March, when the companys electronic voting machines were used in primary elections in Chicago, which were marred by major technical problems.
A Chicago City Council investigation has revealed that Venezuelan nationals had provided technical support during the election, and that some of the glitches could be traced to a software component developed in Venezuela.
"Just as the Dubai ports deal was a priority security issue, any potential foreign influence on our elections system is vital to our national security and deserves at least a look," Maloney said.
"It doesnt seem that the deal for Sequoia was vetted by our government, and I want to know why."
The ports deal collapsed in March, following an outcry in Congress that a Dubai-based company, DP World, had been awarded a 6.8-billion-dollar contract to manage major US ports at a time of heightened terrorism concerns.
Sequoia has repeatedly denied any ties to the Chavez government and pointed out that it had been providing technical support to state and local US elections for more than 100 years -- dating back to the development of the nation's first lever-based mechanical voting equipment in the 1890s.
Executives from both companies were expected to reinforce their case at a press conference here later Monday.
AFP 30 1147 GMT 10 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP All Rights Reserved.
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