Panel scrutinizes Smartmatic's ties to Venezuela
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/15042765.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
July 15, 2006
By Alfonso Chardy
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
A U.S. Treasury-led panel that investigates whether U.S. companies with ties to foreign investors compromise national security has contacted the Boca Raton, Fla., parent company of a voting machine supplier whose top executives once had links to the Venezuelan government.
The company, Smartmatic, last year acquired Sequoia Voting Systems, a well-known supplier of electronic voting equipment in 16 states. Palm Beach and Hillsborough counties are among those that use Sequoia's electronic voting machines. Smartmatic was a partner in a consortium that supplied electronic voting machines used in the controversial referendum President Hugo Chavez won in 2004.
Sequoia has also come under fire in Chicago, where glitches in voting tabulations in a recent election, coupled by the company's admission that its technology support staff is comprised of Venezuelan nationals, raised concern among some city council members who grilled the company's president, Jack Blaine.
"The history of the company that was hired to run this election is no stranger to scandal, not the least of which involves its ties to Venezuela and the claims of its partnership with political corruption in that country," said Alderman Edward Burke at an April 7 Chicago City Council meeting where Blaine was questioned.
Neither Smartmatic nor the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, CFIUS, said why Smartmatic had been contacted. But earlier this year Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., asked Treasury whether the committee had cleared Smartmatic's purchase of California-based Sequoia.
Rep. Maloney echoed the concerns of anti-Chavez critics, suggesting in her May 4 letter to Treasury that CFIUS should review the transaction and determine whether the company is a tool of the Chavez government to influence U.S. elections.
"As you can imagine, having a foreign government investing in or owning a company that supplies voting machines for U.S. elections could raise concerns over the integrity of elections conducted with those machines," Maloney wrote.
Mitch Stoller, a Smartmatic spokesman, said the company did not seek CFIUS review of the transaction because it was not considered to have military, defense or national security implications. Before the purchase, Sequoia was already foreign owned. Its prior owner was De La Rue of Britain.
"Smartmatic is an independent company and no foreign government or entity - including Venezuela - has ever held an ownership stake in Smartmatic," Stoller said
Smartmatic's principal executives are from Venezuela, but the Venezuelan government did not invest in the company. Rather, the government invested in Bizta Corp., which provided software used by Smartmatic, The Miami Herald revealed in 2004.
CFIUS, which includes several federal agencies, emerged from obscurity earlier this year when it approved a bid by a Dubai company to buy several U.S. port operations. The public uproar and congressional questioning eventually scuttled the deal.
Maloney, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology, which has jurisdiction over CFIUS, said in her letter to Treasury that she wanted to ensure the Smartmatic deal had received federal scrutiny.
"I would have concerns if this transaction was done outside the CFIUS process, a process that was put in place to appropriately examine these types of foreign investment."
CFIUS is a 12-agency panel chaired by Treasury and includes the departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security.
Brookly McLaughlin, a CFIUS spokeswoman, said she could not comment on whether the committee cleared the purchase. McLaughlin also declined to confirm or deny whether the committee is investigating Smartmatic's purchase of Sequoia. She said she could only say that CFIUS "has been in contact" with Smartmatic.
Smartmatic is owned by Smartmatic International Holding B.V. in Amsterdam, Stoller said. Blaine, Sequoia's president, told the Chicago City Council that the Amsterdam outfit is owned by Smartmatic International Group, N.V. of Curacao.
Bizta was owned by the same Venezuelan nationals who control Smartmatic, Antonio Mugica Rivero and Alfredo Anzola Jaumotte, childhood friends and engineering school graduates.
Anzola's father, Alfredo Anzola Mendez, was a prominent opposition member and a columnist in the anti-Chavez Caracas newspaper Tal Cual. "I'm anti-Chavez by conviction," he said in a 2004 interview at his home in an exclusive Caracas neighborhood.
The Venezuelan government's investment in Bizta gave the Caracas government 28 percent ownership of the company. The Venezuelan government agency that made the investment, a venture capital fund, said it had nothing to do with the referendum and that it was a bid to promote a promising small company.
In February 2004, the National Electoral Council in Caracas, awarded Bizta and partners Smartmatic and CANTV, Venezuela's publicly held phone company, a $91 million contract to develop new voting machines. But shortly before the referendum, Bizta announced that it was buying back the Venezuelan government's shares.
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© 2006, The Miami Herald.
July 15, 2006
By Alfonso Chardy
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
A U.S. Treasury-led panel that investigates whether U.S. companies with ties to foreign investors compromise national security has contacted the Boca Raton, Fla., parent company of a voting machine supplier whose top executives once had links to the Venezuelan government.
The company, Smartmatic, last year acquired Sequoia Voting Systems, a well-known supplier of electronic voting equipment in 16 states. Palm Beach and Hillsborough counties are among those that use Sequoia's electronic voting machines. Smartmatic was a partner in a consortium that supplied electronic voting machines used in the controversial referendum President Hugo Chavez won in 2004.
Sequoia has also come under fire in Chicago, where glitches in voting tabulations in a recent election, coupled by the company's admission that its technology support staff is comprised of Venezuelan nationals, raised concern among some city council members who grilled the company's president, Jack Blaine.
"The history of the company that was hired to run this election is no stranger to scandal, not the least of which involves its ties to Venezuela and the claims of its partnership with political corruption in that country," said Alderman Edward Burke at an April 7 Chicago City Council meeting where Blaine was questioned.
Neither Smartmatic nor the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, CFIUS, said why Smartmatic had been contacted. But earlier this year Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., asked Treasury whether the committee had cleared Smartmatic's purchase of California-based Sequoia.
Rep. Maloney echoed the concerns of anti-Chavez critics, suggesting in her May 4 letter to Treasury that CFIUS should review the transaction and determine whether the company is a tool of the Chavez government to influence U.S. elections.
"As you can imagine, having a foreign government investing in or owning a company that supplies voting machines for U.S. elections could raise concerns over the integrity of elections conducted with those machines," Maloney wrote.
Mitch Stoller, a Smartmatic spokesman, said the company did not seek CFIUS review of the transaction because it was not considered to have military, defense or national security implications. Before the purchase, Sequoia was already foreign owned. Its prior owner was De La Rue of Britain.
"Smartmatic is an independent company and no foreign government or entity - including Venezuela - has ever held an ownership stake in Smartmatic," Stoller said
Smartmatic's principal executives are from Venezuela, but the Venezuelan government did not invest in the company. Rather, the government invested in Bizta Corp., which provided software used by Smartmatic, The Miami Herald revealed in 2004.
CFIUS, which includes several federal agencies, emerged from obscurity earlier this year when it approved a bid by a Dubai company to buy several U.S. port operations. The public uproar and congressional questioning eventually scuttled the deal.
Maloney, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology, which has jurisdiction over CFIUS, said in her letter to Treasury that she wanted to ensure the Smartmatic deal had received federal scrutiny.
"I would have concerns if this transaction was done outside the CFIUS process, a process that was put in place to appropriately examine these types of foreign investment."
CFIUS is a 12-agency panel chaired by Treasury and includes the departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security.
Brookly McLaughlin, a CFIUS spokeswoman, said she could not comment on whether the committee cleared the purchase. McLaughlin also declined to confirm or deny whether the committee is investigating Smartmatic's purchase of Sequoia. She said she could only say that CFIUS "has been in contact" with Smartmatic.
Smartmatic is owned by Smartmatic International Holding B.V. in Amsterdam, Stoller said. Blaine, Sequoia's president, told the Chicago City Council that the Amsterdam outfit is owned by Smartmatic International Group, N.V. of Curacao.
Bizta was owned by the same Venezuelan nationals who control Smartmatic, Antonio Mugica Rivero and Alfredo Anzola Jaumotte, childhood friends and engineering school graduates.
Anzola's father, Alfredo Anzola Mendez, was a prominent opposition member and a columnist in the anti-Chavez Caracas newspaper Tal Cual. "I'm anti-Chavez by conviction," he said in a 2004 interview at his home in an exclusive Caracas neighborhood.
The Venezuelan government's investment in Bizta gave the Caracas government 28 percent ownership of the company. The Venezuelan government agency that made the investment, a venture capital fund, said it had nothing to do with the referendum and that it was a bid to promote a promising small company.
In February 2004, the National Electoral Council in Caracas, awarded Bizta and partners Smartmatic and CANTV, Venezuela's publicly held phone company, a $91 million contract to develop new voting machines. But shortly before the referendum, Bizta announced that it was buying back the Venezuelan government's shares.
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© 2006, The Miami Herald.
posted by ConcernedVoter06 at 11:02 PM
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