Ballot Firm's Ties to Venezuela Criticized
Some American officials worry that Sequoia Voting Systems' foreign link could compromise the integrity of the U.S. election process.
By Marc Lifsher, Times Staff Writer
June 3, 2006
An Oakland company that provides electronic voting machines in California and 19 other states is drawing scrutiny over its acquisition last year by a group of Venezuelan investors with past business ties to the government of President Hugo Chavez.
Voters in 20 California counties Tuesday will use voting machines provided by Sequoia Voting Systems, the country's oldest maker of election equipment. Sequoia's ownership has barely caused a ripple in California, but it has prompted elected officials in Chicago and New York to raise questions about possible foreign influence in U.S. elections.
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) last month wrote U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow asking whether the Bush administration had weighed the national security implications of "a company with possible ties to the Venezuelan government" selling touch-screen voting machines for U.S. elections....
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A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which evaluates foreign acquisitions of U.S.-based companies, said officials were looking into Maloney's query but declined to comment further.
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....
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sequoia3jun03,0,3756305.story?coll=la-home-business
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