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William Chirolas -- World News Trust
Oct. 30, 2006 -- So now the GOP tries to imply their electronic vote theft is really Chávez moving U.S. elections toward those he wants to win?
A Miami Herald story tries to imply electronic voting problems in the United States on Sequoia machines are biased the way Venezuela’s Chávez wants the election to go, because one of the manufacturers selling voting machines in the United States, Sequoia, has the same ownership as the company that made the machines used in Venezuela’s elections.
Do media folks ever research GOP PR blurbs? President Carter "ok'd" the electronic voting on the "Smartmatic" voting machines -- with extensive documentation of why. Did anyone at the Miami Herald notice that the Venezuelan voting machine’s have both paper trails and a process that includes audits? The total process was reviewed by international observers -- yet the Miami Herald lets this story get planted with none of the above background.
Perhaps the Miami Herald's print space might be better used discussing why the electronic voting machine company felt it needed a different voting machine -- a machine that met GOP standards for ease of stealing the vote while leaving no trail -- so that Sequoia's electronic voting machines could be competitive, in a GOP sense, with the Diebold machines that the Princeton University video showed were so easy to use to steal elections while leaving no trace of the theft?
The Miami Herald story “U.S. digs for vote-machine links to Hugo Chávez” by Alfonso Chardy reports how our Justice Department is being used for GOP political purposes, saying “In the debate on the reliability of electronic voting technology, the South Florida parent company of one of the nation's leading suppliers of touch-screen voting machines is drawing special scrutiny from the U.S. government…. Federal officials are investigating whether Smartmatic, owner of Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems, is secretly controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, according to two people familiar with the probe.”
Since 1989, The Carter Center has observed 65 elections in 26 countries with worldwide review and approval of their work. President Jimmy Carter, after the Carter Center observed Venezuelan voting and audited a results sample from the Aug. 15 referendum to recall President Hugo Rafael Chavez, summarized: "The Carter Center concludes that the automated machines worked well and the voting results do reflect the will of the people.
Additional links:
28 Jun 2005 Report: The Carter Center and the Peacebuilding Process in Venezuela June 2002 - February 2005
25 Feb 2005 The Venezuela Presidential Recall Referendum: Final Reports . An overview of the Carter Center's observation of the 2004 Venezuela presidential recall referendum, with links to three final reports (in English and Spanish)
30 Sep 2004 Executive Summary of Comprehensive Report: 2004 Venezuela Elections (PDF). This is the executive summary of the comprehensive report of the Carter Center's observation of the signature collection, verification, reparos, and the recall referendum in Venezuela. As the formal appeals and dispute adjudication process is still ongoing, we will issue andendum to this report if needed at the conclusion of these formal appeals.
The actual machine photo is below:
Type: The integrated voting device has a small touch screen and a receipt printer.Usage: Almost the entire country voted on the device for an Aug. 15 referendum on the ouster of President Chavez.Addressing distrust: Paper receipts were kept by polling stations for random audits.Addressing multiple votes: A voter's fingerprint is transmitted to a national database, ensuring that each person votes only once.
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William Chirolas brings 40 years of real-world business experience in local, state, national, and international tax, pensions, and finance to the world of blogging. A graduate of MIT, he calls the Boston area home, except when visiting kids and grandkids. He can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. \n
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