Sequoia Voting Systems

Sequoia Voting Systems is a subsidiary of De La Rue PLC, a British printer and security paper company.

In 2000 it was widely criticized for the failure of 58,000 touch-screen voting terminals (DREs) distributed in Nevada, California, New Jersey and New Mexico, in what was expected to be one of the closest races of the campaign.

Sequoia was one of the three leading companies in the U.S. touchscreen market but, despite its increased sales, reported an operating loss of £1.9 million for the year.

De La Rue PLC decides to sell Sequoia Voting Systems

Sequoia Voting Systems and Smartmatic combine to form a global leader.

On March 9, 2005, Smartmatic announced on its website, the merger between Sequoia Voting Systems and Smartmatic, in high security electronic voting solutions.

Tracey Graham, president of Sequoia, was very pleased to join forces with Smartmatic, stating that the merger would enhance the full range of voting solutions and services.

Leading the state market, but with multiple failures

Although Sequoia Voting Systems was quietly leading the market during 2006, in the process of closing more sales and overwork they reported multiple failed deliveries, defective equipment and lawsuits for breach of contract.

The signing of a $13.3 million contract by Alameda County makes Smartmatic – Sequoia the dominant voting system manufacturer in California.

Outside the state of California, controversy has arisen over the foreign ownership of Oakland-based Sequoia.

Venezuela an indelible mark

Windy City politicians and CNN’s Lou Dobbs recently suggested that the federal government had acted negligently in failing to investigate Sequoia and its acquisition last year by Smartmatic, a Boca Raton, Florida-based company largely owned by Venezuelan businessmen.

After Chicago and Cook County suffered delays this spring in a primary vote count, city alderman Edward Burke suggested that Sequoia’s voting machines were part of a conspiracy by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to manipulate U.S. elections.

“We may have stumbled upon what could be an international conspiracy to subvert the electoral process in the United States of America,” Burke told reporters.

Shortly thereafter, Investors Business Daily editorialists warned that “we could be ambushed again if the Venezuelan government ends up controlling our elections.”

In late May, the U.S. Treasury Department requested documents from Sequoia and Smartmatic about the transaction as a possible preliminary document for review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States….

Next to a television logo that says “Democracy for Sale,” Dobbs said, “we know what we’re dealing with, and it’s a dysfunctional government that is trying to make our elections exactly the same.”

The story

Smartmatic was virtually unknown until 2004, when, as part of a consortium, it won a $91 million contract to manufacture voting machines in Venezuela.

The second company of the consortium, whose partners are the same owners of Smartmatic Corp. ceded shares and the head of the board of directors to Omar Montilla, representative of the Urban Credit Fund (FONCREI), turning the Venezuelan government into the main shareholder of the company that developed the Smartmatic Automated Electoral System (SAES) Voting Software.

Smartmatic makes allegations where it indicates that it did not assign shares, but that it was a loan, but the deeds and documents show the opposite.

Pressure or concealment, Smartmatic sells its subsidiary Sequoia Voting System.

After multiple negotiations and delivery of documents, Smartmatic reaches an agreement with CFIUS for the sale of its subsidiary Sequoia Voting Systems.

In Jack Blaine’s March 21, 2014 affidavit, he indicates that “Antonio Mugica, who controlled Smartmatic, indicated to Sequoia management that Smartmatic would Sequoia to us without an upfront cash payment. Smartmatic and its lawyers and our lawyers encouraged Sequoia management to organize SVS as a holding company that would purchase and own all Sequoia’s stock. SVS did not exist until Smartmatic contemplated selling Sequoia to Sequoia’s then-management, and SVS was created specifically for the purpose of that transaction.”

In 2008 Sequoia Voting Systems sold part of its “contract” assets to Dominion Voting Systems, divesting New York and allowing Dominion Voting Systems to enter the U.S. market.

On June 4, 2010, Dominion Voting Systems announces that it “acquire the assets of Sequoia Voting Systems, a major U.S. provider of voting solutions serving nearly 300 jurisdictions in 16 states. As parto f the transaction, Dominion has acquired Sequoia’s inventory and all intellectual property, including software, firmware and hardware, for Sequoia’s precinct and central count optical scan and DRE voting solutions, including BPS, WinEDS, Edge, Edge2, Advantage, Insight, InsightPlus and 400C systems.”

This enables it to become one of the largest providers of election technology in the United States.