U.S. government finally taking a close at electronic voting technology

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/washington/29ballot.html?ei=5094
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/washington/29ballot.html?ei=5094&en=fd899
d68b6854b10&hp=&ex=1162094400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print>
&en=fd899d68b6854b10&hp=&ex=1162094400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
 
October 29, 2006

U.S. Investigates Voting Machines’ Venezuela Ties 

By TIM GOLDEN

The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading
American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software
company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of
President
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/hugo_chavez/in
dex.html?inline=nyt-per> Hugo Chávez.

The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company,
the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the
government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s
operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation
said.

The inquiry on the eve of the midterm elections is being conducted by the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/un
itedstates/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> United States, or Cfius, the same
panel of 12 government agencies that reviewed the abortive attempt by a
company in Dubai to take over operations at six American ports earlier this
year.

The committee’s formal inquiry into Smartmatic and its subsidiary, Sequoia
Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., was first reported Saturday in The Miami
Herald.

Officials of both Smartmatic and the Venezuelan government strongly denied
yesterday that President Chávez’s administration, which has been bitterly at
odds with Washington, has any role in Smartmatic.

“The government of
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/ve
nezuela/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> 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. 

But Smartmatic was a little-known firm with no experience in voting
technology before it was chosen by the Venezuelan authorities to replace the
country’s elections machinery ahead of a contentious referendum that
confirmed Mr. Chávez as president in August 2004.

...

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