“U.S. national security is potentially at risk because software used to count votes in 20% of the country during U.S. elections is owned and controlled by a Venezuelan-run company with ties to the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez, which has been described as “the foremost meddler in foreign elections in the Western hemisphere,” Voter Action says in a detailed report.

“Foreign-owned and foreign-run Smartmatic’s control over votecounting software used in the voting machines of Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc. (‘Sequoia’ or ‘SVS’) presents a potential national security risk now just as it did in 2006 when the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (‘CFIUS’) opened an investigation of Smartmatic’s ownership of Sequoia,” the report says.

See below for the link to the full Voter Action report, which is housed on the website of the federal government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Source:
1. www.nist.gov/files/vote/SequoiaSmartmaticReport

1. In addition to the potential national security risk involved in the use of a voting software company allegedly with ties to the Venezuelan goverment, such software was de-certified by the State of California due to its security weaknesses and for not complying with the standards. Why was that same software then used to run elections in 20% of the United States?

2. Is Voter Action correct to say that “U.S. national security is potentially at risk because software used to count votes in 20% of the country during U.S. elections is owned and controlled by a Venezuelan-run company with ties to the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez”?

3. Is Voter Action’s 2008 assessment still valid today – that “Foreign-owned and foreign-run Smartmatic’s control over vote counting software used in … voting machines … presents a potential national security risk”?

4. What does the rest of the lengthy Voter Action report say?