Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: The Starmaker Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,sci.physics,sci.physics.relativity Subject: Re: How To Rig a Dominion Voting Machine Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2024 10:02:55 -0700 Organization: The Starmaker Organization Lines: 238 Message-ID: <6713E63F.437F@ix.netcom.com> References: <6709746E.69F4@ix.netcom.com> <6709A4F9.3772@ix.netcom.com> <670A073F.30CD@ix.netcom.com> <670A0C8D.5586@ix.netcom.com> <670C3968.77E2@ix.netcom.com> Reply-To: starmaker@ix.netcom.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2024 19:02:50 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="363b550e87f6b4e4a79d0401710fe91f"; logging-data="4172376"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18jmrMXkAKdg/OqkyP2LkXJ5uQITmB6Yjw=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:IRFPPOQLdJDGia8AH7rUyYVjRTM= X-Antivirus: Avast (VPS 241019-6, 10/19/2024), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.04Gold (WinNT; U) Xref: csiph.com alt.fan.rush-limbaugh:2852871 sci.physics:889678 sci.physics.relativity:658145 This just in... Reports from Whitfield County, GA that Dominion machines are flipping votes. https://twitter.com/i/status/1847361255415460148 The Starmaker wrote: > > U.S. Investigates Voting Machines’ Venezuela Ties > > https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/washington/29ballot.html > > 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 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 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 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. > > 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. > > Seven months before that voting contract was awarded, a Venezuelan > government financing agency invested more than $200,000 into a smaller > technology company, owned by some of the same people as Smartmatic, that > joined with Smartmatic as a minor partner in the bid. > > In return, the government agency was given a 28 percent stake in the > smaller company and a seat on its board, which was occupied by a senior > government official who had previously advised Mr. Chávez on elections > technology. But Venezuelan officials later insisted that the money was > merely a small-business loan and that it was repaid before the > referendum. > > With a windfall of some $120 million from its first three contracts with > Venezuela, Smartmatic then bought the much larger and more established > Sequoia Voting Systems, which now has voting equipment installed in 17 > states and the District of Columbia. > > Since its takeover by Smartmatic in March 2005, Sequoia has worked > aggressively to market its voting machines in Latin America and other > developing countries. “The goal is to create the world’s leader in > electronic voting solutions,” said Mitch Stoller, a company spokesman. > > But the role of the young Venezuelan engineers who founded Smartmatic > has become less visible in public documents as the company has been > restructured into an elaborate web of offshore companies and foreign > trusts. > > “The government should know who owns our voting machines; that is a > national security concern,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, > Democrat of New York, who asked the Bush administration in May to review > the Sequoia takeover. > > “There seems to have been an obvious effort to obscure the ownership of > the company,” Ms. Maloney said of Smartmatic in a telephone interview > yesterday. “The Cfius process, if it is moving forward, can determine > that.” > > The concern over Smartmatic’s purchase of Sequoia comes amid rising > unease about the security of touch-screen voting machines and other > electronic elections systems. > > 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. > > A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which oversees the foreign > investment committee, said she could not comment on whether the panel > was conducting a formal investigation. > > “Cfius has been in contact with the company,” said the spokeswoman, > Brookly McLaughlin, citing discussions that were first disclosed in > July. “It is important that the process is conducted in a professional > and nonpolitical manner.” > > The committee has wide authority to review foreign investments in the > United States that might have national security implications. In > practice, though, it has focused mainly on foreign acquisitions of > defense companies and other investments in traditional security realms. > > Since the political furor over the Dubai ports deal, members of Congress > from both parties have sought to widen the purview of such reviews to > incorporate other emerging national security concerns. > > In late July, the House and the Senate overwhelmingly approved > legislation to expand the committee’s scope, give a greater role to the > office of the director of national intelligence and strengthen > Congressional oversight of the review process. > > But the Bush administration opposed major changes, and Congressional > leaders did not act to reconcile the two bills before Congress > adjourned. > > Foreigners seeking to buy American companies in areas like defense > manufacturing typically seek the committee’s review themselves before > going ahead with a purchase. Legal experts said it would be highly > unusual for the panel to investigate a transaction like the Sequoia > takeover, and even more unusual for the panel to try to nullify the > transaction so long after it was completed. > > It is unclear, moreover, what the government would need to uncover about > the Sequoia sale to take such an action. > > The investment committee’s review typically involves an initial 30-day > examination of any transactions that might pose a threat to national > security, including a collective assessment from the intelligence > community. Should concerns remain, one of the agencies involved can > request an additional and more rigorous 45-day investigation. > > In the case of the ports deal, the transaction was approved by the > investment committee. But the Dubai company later abandoned the deal, > agreeing to sell out to an American company after a barrage of criticism > by legislators from both parties who said the administration had not > adequately reviewed the deal or informed Congress about its > implications. > > The concerns about possible ties between the owners of Smartmatic and > the Chávez government have been well known to United States > foreign-policy officials since before the 2004 recall election in which > Mr. Chávez, a strong ally of President Fidel Castro of Cuba, won by an > official margin of nearly 20 percent. > > Opposition leaders asserted that the balloting had been rigged. But a > statistical analysis of the distribution of the vote by American experts > in electronic voting security showed that the result did not fit the > pattern of irregularities that the opposition had claimed. > > At the same time, the official audit of the vote by the Venezuelan > election authorities was badly flawed, one of the American experts said. > “They did it all wrong,” one of the authors of the study, Avi Rubin, a > professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said in an > interview. > > Opposition members of Venezuela’s electoral council had also protested > that they were excluded from the bidding process in which Smartmatic and > a smaller company, the Bizta Corporation, were selected to replace a > $120 million system that had been built by Election Systems and Software > of Omaha. > > Smartmatic was then a fledgling technology start-up. Its registered > address was the Boca Raton, Fla., home of the father of one of the two > young Venezuelan engineers who were its principal officers, Antonio > Mugica and Alfredo Anzola, and it had a one-room office with a single > secretary. > > The company claimed to have only two going ventures, small contracts for > secure communications software that a Smartmatic spokesman said had a > total value of about $2 million. > > At that point, Bizta amounted to even less. Company documents, first > reported in 2004 by The Herald, showed the firm to be virtually dormant > until it received the $200,000 investment from a fund controlled by the > Venezuelan Finance Ministry, which took a 28 percent stake in return. > > Weeks before Bizta and Smartmatic won the referendum contract, the > government also placed a senior official of the Science Ministry, Omar > Montilla, on Bizta’s board, alongside Mr. Mugica and Mr. Anzola. Mr. > Montilla, The Herald reported, had acted as an adviser to Mr. Chávez on > elections technology. > > More recent corporate documents show that before and after Smartmatic’s > purchase of Sequoia from a British-owned firm, the company was > reorganized in an array of holding companies based in Delaware > (Smartmatic International), the Netherlands (Smartmatic International > Holding, B.V.), and Curaçao (Smartmatic International Group, N.V.). The > firm’s ownership was further shielded in two Curaçao trusts. > > Mr. Stoller, the Smartmatic spokesman, said that the reorganization was > done simply to help expand the company’s international operations, and > that it had not tried to hide its ownership, which he said was more than > 75 percent in the hands of Mr. Mugica and his family. > > “No foreign government or entity, including Venezuela, has ever held any > stake in Smartmatic,” Mr. Stoller said. “Smartmatic has always been a > privately held company, and despite that, we’ve been fully transparent > about the ownership of the corporation.” > > Mr. Stoller emphasized that Bizta was a separate company and said the > shares the Venezuelan government received in it were “the guarantee for > a loan.” > > Mr. Stoller also described concerns about the security of Sequoia’s > electronic systems as unfounded, given their certification by federal > and state election agencies. > > But after a municipal primary election in Chicago in March, Sequoia > voting machines were blamed for a series of delays and irregularities. > Smartmatic’s new president, Jack A. Blaine, acknowledged in a public > hearing that Smartmatic workers had been flown up from Venezuela to help > with the vote. > > Some problems with the election were later blamed on a software > component, which transmits the voting results to a central computer, > that was developed in Venezuela. > > -- > The Starmaker -- To question the unquestionable, ask the unaskable, > to think the unthinkable, mention the unmentionable, say the unsayable, > and challenge the unchallengeable. -- The Starmaker -- To question the unquestionable, ask the unaskable, to think the unthinkable, mention the unmentionable, say the unsayable, and challenge the unchallengeable.