Behind a significant portion of the voting machines used in the United States lies a complex web of questionable foreign ties, a hidden ownership structure, and transparency concerns with the software itself. There is also a connection between three key voting systems companies: Smartmatic, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Dominion Voting Systems.
Information from lawsuits, public records, and witness interviews helps to untangle this web. The Epoch Times spoke with an intelligence source knowledgeable on Venezuela and its criminal activities, a former CIA official who is an expert in Latin American politics/counterterrorism, and a former director of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council who was fired for exposing election fraud in the country. Two of the sources requested anonymity so they could speak freely on the matter.
At the center of all of this is the Dominion voting system, which is currently used in 28 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, according to Dominion’s official website. More than 40 percent of American voters vote through the Dominion system in general elections, including 65 of the 83 counties in Michigan and all 159 counties in Georgia, while also covering 2.2 million voters in Maricopa, Arizona’s largest county, among others.
Origins
Smartmatic was founded by three Venezuelan engineers in 1997—Antonio Mucica, Alfredo Jose, and Roger Piñate. It was in the business of electronic voting systems, identity management, and systems for civil registration and authentication products.
Despite it being a little-known company at the time, Smartmatic was chosen by Venezuela’s regime to be used in a 2004 referendum that socialist President Hugo Chávez would later win. Before this, Smartmatic was part of a consortium that included a software company partly owned by a Venezuelan government agency. At the time, there was a wide array of allegations of fraud in the referendum by media organizations and observers.
Smartmatic was officially incorporated in Delaware in April 2000 and headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. In April 2003, the company unveiled a prototype election automation machine. It was developed in-house and included the integration of hardware and software from design to deployment. The company moved its main headquarters to Amsterdam in 2004 and then London in 2012.
Smartmatic allegedly has 30 anonymous investors and silent partners who are mainly upper-class Venezuelans, including defense minister Jose Vicente Rangel and Chávez mentor Luis Miquelina, and others, according to a July 20, 2006, State Department diplomatic cable leaked to Wikileaks.
Smartmatic itself publicly admitted that Venezuela’s government manipulated the results of the country’s 2017 Constitutional Assembly election. Smartmatic said the turnout figures were manipulated up by at least 1 million votes, Reuters reported.
“We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated,” Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica said at a news briefing in London in 2017. “We estimate the difference between the actual participation and the one announced by authorities is at least 1 million votes.”
Chávez’ successor, Nicholas Maduro, who is allied with the Chinese Communist Party and Russia, was indicted by the Trump administration in March for charges of “narco-terrorism.” Cuba’s Fidel Castro also mourned the death of Chavez, who called him a “father, a comrade,” according to a 2005 interview with Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma.
‘Manipulated’ Results
In Venezuela, Ana Mercedes Diaz was appointed deputy director general of the country’s National Electoral Council in 1991. Then in 2003—just before the referendum—she was appointed director general of political parties of the council. (The electoral council is one of the five branches of Venezuela’s government responsible for overseeing its elections and referendums.)
Diaz was fired in 2004 after she published information on electoral fraud occurring in Venezuela’s referendum. She said what is happening in the United States mirrors the issues with Smartmatic in Venezuela.
Ana Mercedes Diaz, former Director General of Political Parties of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council. (Courtesy Ana Mercedes Diaz)
“It was admitted by Smartmatic that the results can be manipulated,” Diaz told The Epoch Times. “Smartmatic later came out of Venezuela, but it’s been proven that this type of fraud goes wherever they go. What’s happening in the United states is exactly the same thing.”
“The program can make those changes from Biden to Trump,” she said, adding that “this change is almost impossible to detect.”
After her firing, someone who still worked for the council sent Diaz a copy of the government contract signed with Smartmatic. She saw that it was negotiated in only three days and thought it strange the government chose a company with no previous history or experience in elections, despite this being one of the criteria of the council’s selection.
Diaz later emigrated to the United States. Since Venezuela’s 2004 referendum until his death in 2013, Chávez won all of the country’s elections through a “fraudulent system,” she alleged.
Diaz noted other parallels and similarities between issues in this year’s election and what she saw in Venezuela. Many American poll watchers and challengers have submitted sworn affidavits saying they could not see the actual ballots being counted, due to obstruction. She said in Venezuela, “observers were also not allowed to see the votes.”
“In Venezuela, the opposition was winning, the light went off, and when it came back, the results were flipped. I was following the U.S election and there came a momfent where information stopped … nobody knew what had happened,” she said.
“There was nothing for a few hours—it’s exactly, exactly, exactly how Smartmatic operated in Venezuela.”
According to Diaz, Venezuela is exporting its voting machines to other Latin and Asian countries so they can influence elections across the globe. The U.S. government has repeatedly sanctioned officials of Maduro’s regime who were involved in public corruption or undermining democracy.
According to the leaked 2006 State Department cable, Smartmatic “is thought to be backing out of Venezuelan electoral events, focusing now on other parts of world, including the United States via its subsidiary, Sequoia.”
“Smartmatic is a riddle. The company came out of nowhere to snatch a multli-million dollar contract in an electoral process that ultimately reaffirmed Chavez’ mandate and all-but destroyed his political opposition,” the cable continues. “The perspective we have here, after several discussions … is that the company is de facto Venezuelan and operated by Venezuelans.”
A former CIA official who is an expert in Latin American politics and counterterrorism said his team found through an investigation that Chávez started to focus on voting machines to ensure victory as early as 2003, when over 20 percent of Venezuelans signed a recall referendum to remove him from his position as president.
“[Chávez] started talking to a company called Indra, a Spanish company which [ran] elections” in Venezuela at that time, he said.
After deciding that Indra’s voting machines weren’t “flexible” enough, Chávez contacted Smartmatic, according to the official. Smartmatic says Chavez did not contact Smartmatic but that the process went through the National Election Council. Smartmatic later won the bid over Indra. The five-member Venezuelan electoral council, which was dominated by Chávez supporters, awarded a $91-million contract to Smartmatic for the referendum.
“At midnight on election day the machine stopped counting,” the official said, noting that Chávez was losing at this point. “By 3 a.m., Chavez had won by 10 percent.”
Smartmatic spokesperson Samira Saba claimed that results are not known in real time.
In 2005, Smartmatic bought Sequoia Voting Systems, a much larger and more established company based in Oakland, California. At the time, Sequoia had installed voting equipment in 17 U.S. states and Washington.
Concerns that Smartmatic had ties to Chávez were so widespread at the time that the U.S. government started investigating the takeover of the company a year after they made the purchase, The New York Times reported at the time. The probe was being conducted by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews deals by foreign acquirers for potential national security risks.
Among the concerns was Smartmatic’s convoluted business structure.
Smartmatic’s headquarters located in Boca Rotan, Florida on Dec. 2, 2020. (The Epoch Times)
“Smartmatic has claimed to be of U.S. origin, but its true owners—probably elite Venezuelans of several political strains—remain hidden behind a web of holding companies in the Netherlands and Barbados,” according to the state department cable.
In 2006, Treasury Secretary John Snow had inquired whether the Venezuelan government could use Sequoia to manipulate U.S. elections. Then-Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14), another high-profile politician who raised similar concerns, was the first to raise the need for an investigation of the Sequoia deal.
Before it sold Sequoia, Smartmatic had refused to undergo such a review by the U.S. government, claiming all the allegations were simply rumors.
“It seems [Smartmatic] could not overcome the cloud of doubt surrounding this deal—had they been able to, we would not be talking about a sale of Sequoia today,” Maloney said in 2006 statement. “As I said in May, it seems that a CFIUS review was in fact the proper course.”
Smartmatic attempted to respond to these concerns, but in 2007 ended up selling Sequoia to what the company described in a press release as “a group of private U.S. investors comprised by Sequoia’s current executive management team, led by Sequoia President & CEO Jack Blaine and the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Peter McManemy.”
Such private equity firms, including Dominion, were named in a scathing 2019 press release by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who raised concerns about the poor condition and vulnerabilities of voting machines and other election equipment, along with a lack of transparency, in letters to these firms.
A year after Smartmatic sold Sequoia it was revealed through a 2008 lawsuit the name of Sequoia’s new owner: “SVS Holdings.” Court arguments uncovered that Smartmatic was still the owner of Sequoia’s intellectual property.
Dominion Voting Systems
Some Smartmatic employees later joined Dominion Voting Systems, which was first founded in Toronto, Canada, in 2002 and also has offices in the United States and Serbia. In 2010, Eric Coomer, former Smartmatic vice president of engineering, joined Dominion.
According to a 2010 Dominion press release that has since been all but scrubbed from the internet, aside from a file saved by journalist Brad Friedman, Dominion on June 4, 2010, announced that it had “acquired the assets of Sequoia Voting Systems, a major U.S. provider of voting solutions serving nearly 300 jurisdictions in 16 states.”
“As part of 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,” the release states.
The outside of the Toronto, Canada office of Dominion Voting Systems. (The Epoch Times) 
The outside of the Denver office of Dominion Voting Systems, which appears to have been abandoned, in Denver, Colorado, on Nov. 30. (The Epoch Times)
“Dominion will also retain Sequoia’s facilities in Denver, Colorado and San Leandro, California and will consolidate Sequoia’s Jamestown, New York facility with Dominion’s existing Jamestown facility,” the release continues. “Dominion has hired Sequoia’s customer service and technical personnel to ensure capable, experienced and responsive customer service for all current Sequoia jurisdictions.”
The release notes that Dominion’s acquisition of Sequoia’s assets was reviewed by the Justice Department and nine state attorneys general. It was also reviewed and approved by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States.
According to a July 2009 press release posted by Business Wire, Sequoia and Dominion at one point also signed a temporary contract with New York state “for the purchase of voting equipment and related services to Dominion Voting, with Dominion assuming all of Sequoia’s obligations under the contract.”
The release states the financial details of this transaction “are not being disclosed by the parties; however both Sequoia and Dominion are pleased with the outcome of this agreement.”
In 2012, the connection between Dominion and Smartmatic was highlighted again in a lawsuit. Smartmatic filed the suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery against Dominion for the “company’s alleged breach of a licensing agreement and tortious interference with Smartmatic’s business,” according to a news release.
“The lawsuit is seeking compensation from Dominion for allegedly withholding technology and services that had been licensed to Smartmatic, and for Dominion’s intentional actions to denigrate Smartmatic’s brand and undermine its relationship with customers and prospects,” the release states.
The case was reportedly settled out of court.
In 2009, Dominion and Smartmatic entered into a contract in which Dominion provided Smartmatic with optical scanning machines used in the 2010 Philippine election, which at the time was “the biggest automated election run by a private company.” Glitches on Smartmatic machines also took place in the Philippines election, as one report by ABS-CBN detailed.
“Both companies’ reputations suffered as a result of heavily publicized litigation relating to a software glitch that was resolved just before the 2010 election and that litigation rumbled on to partly affect the mid-term elections in 2013,” a report published in Accesswire stated.
This history suggests that Dominion and Smartmatic both had ownership of Sequoia at different points in time, and that the intellectual property of Smartmatic remains with Sequoia. It’s unclear if Dominion used Sequoia software this election.
A number of Venezuelan individuals who worked for Sequoia also allegedly worked for Smartmatic and Dominion and had become contractors for each of the companies. “They are moving around in there,” an intelligence source knowledgeable on Venezuela and its criminal activities told The Epoch Times.
“Smartmatic machines allowed them to mirror the system, they can see live how much they were losing by,” the source asserted. “They tell you you would need to produce 30,000 votes and it has the ability to switch votes. Then you balance it on your own.”
There have also been numerous reported issues with Sequoia’s voting software as reported by a number of news articles over the years. One of the problems took place in October 2006, when Sequoia, then a Denver voting machine contractor, had to send letters to 44,000 voters warning of a mistake on absentee ballots after they found the “yes” and “no” boxes on a ballot question were transposed.
The Epoch Times reached out to Dominion for this article, but did not receive a response. On its website, Dominion has a specific subhead refuting the connection between Dominion, Smartmatic, and Sequoia: “Dominion and Smartmatic are two separate companies that make electronic voting systems. Dominion does not use or license Smartmatic software. Smartmatic has also refuted such claims. Dominion did NOT acquire Smartmatic and/or its software from Sequoia.”
John R. Mills, former director of cybersecurity policy, strategy, and international affairs at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told The Epoch Times, “There is this interesting intersection with legacy software or firmware developers in Venezuela and the current slate of voting machines including Dominion.”
“Venezuela has a solid footprint of Chinese, Russian, and Iranian activities for influence operations in the Americas,” Mills said. “For these to not have an intersection would be odd.”
Smartmatic spokesperson Samira Saba told The Epoch Times they had “nothing to add” aside from the statements published on their website, “because those statements are the facts.” Their website refutes any connections with Dominion or Sequoia. One bullet point the spokesperson lists in an email is that the company’s role in the U.S. election this year was “limited to the county of Los Angeles.”
In a separate email to a different reporter Saba said: “There are no ties between Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic–plain and simple. No ownership ties, no software leasing, no business at all between them. In 2009, Smartmatic licensed scanning machines from Dominion for use in The Philippines for a Smartmatic election project. That short-lived contract was the first and last time that Smartmatic and Dominion tried to do business together. … Smartmatic sold election technology and services in Venezuela from 2004 until 2017.”
The Epoch Times went to Dominion’s offices in Denver, Colorado, and their Toronto office, which both appeared abandoned. The Epoch Times was denied entry to Smartmatic’s office in Florida.
