Brad Blog: Voting Machine Company Chief Lied to Chicago Officials

[AtLiberty]

Exclusive: Voting Machine Company Chief Lied to Chicago Officials About Ownership, Control of Company

Sequoia Voting Systems' CEO, Jack Blaine, Sends Deceptive Letter to Windy City Officials Following 'Evasive' and 'Troublesome' Testimony on his Company's Control by Smartmatic, a Chavez-tied E-Voting Firm

Documents Reveal Officials Sought to Ensure Venezuelan Company's Divestiture of Sequoia Was 'Not a Sham Transaction Designed to Fool Regulators'; Recent Reporting by The BRAD BLOG Reveals That it Was...

-- by Brad Friedman

The CEO and President of one of America's largest voting machine companies, Sequoia Voting Systems, gave both deceptive, and carefully selective answers in his reply to a letter sent earlier this year from two high-ranking officials in Chicago, according to documents recently obtained during an ongoing investigation by The BRAD BLOG.

Sequoia's chief executive, Jack Blaine, repeated knowingly false answers, at least three different times, in his January 18 response to Chicago Alderman Edward M. Burke and the Chair of Chicago's Board of Election Commissioners Langdon D. Neal. The pair had written to the company on January 11, expressing concerns about the truth behind Sequoia's claims that they had completely divested from their purportedly "former" parent company, Smartmatic, the Venezuelan-run firm with direct ties to Hugo Chavez and his government.

Last year, as media reports revealed the true extent of Smartmatic's shadowy foreign ownership --- and with it, the direct control of some 20% of U.S. elections --- the firm came under close scrutiny by federal investigators from Treasury Department, the FBI and the IRS. In November of last year, Sequoia announced that it had "completely" divested from Smartmatic in a management team-led buyout, thus ending an official review by Treasury's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

But in January, the officials from the Windy City --- where Sequoia holds one of the company's most lucrative contracts --- had continuing concerns about whether the sale was legitimate, or simply a dodge to avoid scrutiny by federal investigators. They were right to be concerned...

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