>>11727836 (PB) Alderman: Election Day troubles could be part of 'international conspiracy'

LA TIMES: Ballot Firm’s Ties to Venezuela Criticized

By Marc Lifsher

June 3, 2006

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Sequoia, founded in Jamestown, N.Y., in the late 1890s, was acquired in March 2005 by Smartmatic Corp., a private company owned by Venezuelan investors through a series of holding companies based in Europe and the Caribbean. Sequoia’s previous owner was the British firm De La Rue, best known for printing currencies for dozens of foreign governments.

Smartmatic emerged from obscurity the year before when it won a $100-million contract to supply touch-screen voting machines for an ultimately unsuccessful recall effort against Chavez in 2004.

Before the election, Smartmatic was part of a consortium that included a software company partly owned by a Venezuelan government agency.

Burke, who chaired an investigation into the incident, said he was bothered by reports that Venezuelan technicians and engineers “were in the Chicago tabulating rooms counting votes” on election night. Sequoia President Blaine said the Venezuelans were providing assistance to local election officials unfamiliar with the new voting machines.

Sequoia’s parent company, Boca Raton, Fla.-based Smartmatic, is controlled by Smartmatic International Holdings of Amsterdam. The holding company is owned by Smartmatic International Group of Curacao in the Dutch Antilles, a string of Caribbean islands near the Venezuelan coast.

Stories about Smartmatic’s connections to the Venezuelan government emerged just a few months after Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software Inc. failed to win a contract to refurbish 6,000 voting machines it had sold to a pre-Chavez government in Caracas.

John Groh, Election Systems international president, said he was bedeviled throughout the lengthy negotiations by questions from Chavez administration officials about rumors that his company had links to the CIA.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-03-fi-sequoia3-story.html