With cash generated from its Venezuelan government contract to run the referendum to recall President Hugo Chavez, Smartmatic acquires the ownership of Sequoia Voting Systems, concluding a successful negotiation with Sequoia’s main shareholder De La Rue, PLC.
Sales price is reportedly $16 million.
De La Rue is a major British company that engraves and prints secure documents, from banknotes to passports, for international clients, including Venezuela.
“With the combination of Sequoia and Smartmatic, both proven innovators with accomplished track records in either the U.S. or abroad, we are creating the first truly global leader in providing voter-verified electronic voting solutions,” Smartmatic President Jack Blaine says in a news release.
“In 2004, Smartmatic’s electronic voting solution successfully recorded a total of nearly 16 million votes in Latin America – including the first national election ever handled by an electronic voting solution with a voter-verified paper trail,” the Smartmatic release says.
“Smartmatic is a privately held company with offices in the US, Mexico, Venezuela, Barbados, Spain, Philippines and Taiwan. It has more than 200 employees worldwide,” according to Smartmatic.
Smartmatic’s acquisition of Sequoia establishes a commercial alliance and maintains the American brand with the technical and operational knowledge of the team of Venezuelan engineers at Smartmatic in Venezuela.
The 2005 acquisition marks the beginning of the use of new technologies to be put into practice in the Chicago primary elections in March, 2006.
Photo | Brian Cassella | Chicago Tribute
Obama came to Chicago to cast his ballot, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to vote early.
Source:
1. https://www.smartmatic.com/sequoia-voting-systems-and-smartmatic-combine-to-form-a-global-leader/
2. https://elections.smartmatic.com/obama-votes-with-smartmatic-voting-machine/
3. https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/de-la-rue-in-the-spotlight-6977837.html
4. https://www.ballot-integrity.org/docs/de_la_rue_3-9-2005.pdf
1. How did Smartmatic manage to get enough cash to acquire Sequoia in such a short time?
2. Did this money come from an injection of funds from the Venezuelan goverment?
3. Does this mean that Sequoia, an American company, was also controlled by the Chávez regime?
4. Were the same Smartmatic software and source code implemented in Sequoia systems?
5. Were this software and its source code properly audited and certified by impartial experts?
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