A small plane, carrying the co-founder of Venezuelan voting machine company Smartmatic, crashed earlier this week shortly after take-off from the Caracas airport, killing two employees of the company, and several others on board and on the ground. The initial reports from a foreign paper indicated that the cause of the crash may have been the unusual failure of both engines on the small plane.
Smartmatic has been named as a subject in several recent, exclusive, investigative reports here at The BRAD BLOG, surrounding questions of the Venezuelan firm’s apparent continuing control over the American e-voting company, Sequoia Voting Systems.
Reports of Monday’s crash also indicate that several highly-placed Venezuelan officials were, interestingly, among the first to respond after the plane crashed.
Here’s the lede from yesterday’s English-language coverage in the Miami Herald:
A founding partner of the Smartmatic voting system, headquartered in Boca Raton, was killed this week in Venezuela when a private plane he was traveling in plummeted into a home near the Caracas airport.
Alfredy Jose Anzola Jaumotte, 34, one of the creators of the voting system program, died at an area hospital Tuesday.
Also killed in the accident were the pilot, Mario Jose Donadi, a convicted drug-trafficker in both the United States and Venezuela; Smartmatic employee Eduardo Ramirez and two residents of the home that was struck by the falling aircraft at about 10 a.m. Monday
.
Smartmatic is the once-owner and — as a very recent series of investigative reports from The BRAD BLOG has revealed (see, most notably: here, here and here) — the still-controlling parent company to Oakland/Denver-based Sequoia Voting Systems, which is currently amidst a hostile takeover imbroglio with competitor Hart InterCivic of Austin, TX.
Despite claiming to have sold Sequoia to a management-led buyout team last November, and thus divested of all control of the company under pressure from an investigation by the U.S. Treasury Departments Commission of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), our recent exclusive investigative reports here have revealed that Smartmatic still holds direct and/or indirect control over several key aspects of Sequoia’s operation, including ownership of the intellectual property (IP) rights for Sequoia’s voting machines and tabulator software, and the right to negotiate where Sequoia may or may not compete in foreign markets…
Smartmatic also controls the $2 million loan note used by the former management team, calling themselves SVS Holdings, Inc., to purchase Sequoia from Smartmatic last year. That purchase effectively ended the CFIUS investigation which had been looking into the ties of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ government in the ownership and control of Sequoia, which currently owns some 20% of the American “election industry” market.
Court documents unearthed during the course of our reporting, also reveal that Smartmatic will continue to retain licensing rights over Sequoia software whether or not Hart takes over the company, or even if SVS Holdings is able to stave off the takeover. The cash poor owners of SVS/Sequoia are currently scrambling (so far unsuccessfully) to find financing partners prior to May 15th, when the deal with Hart — or SVS, if they are able to match Hart’s proposal — is scheduled to close.
El Universal’s Spanish-language coverage of the small plane crash which killed Smartmatic’s co-founder indicated that the pilot of the small plane had radioed back to the airport that one engine had failed, just minutes after takeoff. Though he signaled his intention to circle back for an emergency landing, he did not issue an SOS call.
El Universal’s report, as translated for The BRAD BLOG by a Spanish-speaking colleague, who also happens to be very familiar with the Smartmatic/Sequoia story, included a graf charging:
A few more key points of note from El Universal’s coverage, as translated by our colleague, beyond the matter of the reported second engine failure:
…
“It was seen that the [Venezuelan] Interior Minister Ramón RodrÃguez ChacÃn rushed to the [hospital] to check on the status of the co-pilot, Alfredo Anzola, who apparently is a relative of his.
Our colleague also notes that, “other news reports say that Jorge Rodriguez, the former head of the electoral commission and former vice president of Venezuela, also visited the hospital.”
Such reports would seem to underscore the close relationship that Smartmatic continues to have with the government of Venezuela, even while Smartmatic retains such important control over the software, intellectual property, and financial business of Sequoia Voting Systems here in the United States.
Last week, The BRAD BLOG reported that Sequoia/SVS CEO and President Jack Blaine announced to employees during a company-wide conference call, convened to answer questions after our initial exclusive report of the attempted hostile takeover of Sequoia by Hart (still unreported by any other media source, beyond ComputerWorld where we ran a short, greatly condensed version of our report) that his company does not have claim to the intellectual property of Sequoia’s e-voting systems.
“It doesn’t matter really whether we have the IP or not,” Blaine told his employees during the call. “I didn’t particularly want the IP,” he admitted, when discussing the terms of last year’s still-confidential purchase agreement between SVS and Smartmatic for “ownership” of Sequoia.
Sequoia currently controls some 20% of the election industry in the United States, while the attempted takeover of the company by Hart InterCivic, which controls some 8% of that market, would create a new e-voting powerhouse in this country, second only to Omaha-based Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S).
In related news, as Blaine is increasingly panicked over the impending hostile takeover, while he and other company executives in Denver frantically seek financing to save themselves; The BRAD BLOG has learned from several sources that Sequoia’s recently hired general counsel, and head of human resources, Lina George, abruptly resigned this week. We’ve not yet been able to learn the reasons given for her departure. Company VP, part-owner, and spokesperson Michelle Shafer, the only one officially allowed to speak with the media, according to a recent email missive she sent to all employees following one of our recent reports, continues to refuse to answer our queries.
The BRAD BLOG will continue to follow developments, and expects to have still more exclusive news on this matter next week.
Wow what twisted up turn of events. I am glad you left a lead headline to make sense of all this.
It reads like a guerrilla war, mercenary, drug, murder novel otherwise. It’s be interesting to see what was in the forms (maintenance records) of that aircraft N6463L. I wonder what the last maintenance was.
I don’t expect the corporate fascist mainstream news to send out a team of journalists any time soon.
I found it more interesting to learn from the article the Venezuela’s Smartmatic still owns the rights to the computer code (intellectual property, IP) of the voting machines Sequoia is selling in the US. This means that Sequoia is nothing more than a shell marketing organization, and that the people still programming how the machines count votes are paid by a foreign company thay may or may not be as corrupt as some of their American counterparts.
The “fix” to all of this is not to forbid foreign companies like Smartmatic and Inkavote (Malaysia) from selling their wares in the US, but to open up the entire system so that we can see exactly how our votes are being counted, and to cross-check the counts with appropriate handcounts/audits. In other words, we need to build an election system that assumes that the machines are being programmed by convicted-embezzler enemies of America (domestic or foreign) with ties to stock fraud, gambling and/or cocaine trafficking, because some of them are.
open up the entire system
Will Greenberg-Traurig come up in any of this if I do a little digging?
Hey, the boyz pissed somebody off, and that makes engines fail … at the same time:
(ABC au, emphasis added). And it is still that way, today, 8 years later.
I like Karen’s take, above, on all this.
And as others posit, there’s drugs, guns, voting fraud and more all wrapped up and likely dead ending at BushCo and The White House.
I’d BET my ass that Sun Myung Moon figures in here somewhere, too. We’re talking BILLIONS of dollars that fucker has invested into the GOP ReichWing Nuttery over the past 2+ decades or more.
And HIS ties to BushCo are well documented today at Smirking Chimp. Good read.
The deck sure looks stacked.
Brad, your work helps to even out the hands occassionaly, and it keeps me from wanting to howl at the moon and go beserk at the bad odds we all face.
Thanks for all you and those with you do for us.
Keep it coming.
I’m sorry, I credited Karen comment with the one JIM posted. My bad. All good, though.
Open it up, for sure. But, that ain’t gonna happen under THESE circumstances.
Not with the Supremes being stacked, the DOJ being stacked, and Congress keeling over despite a majority (cus they is culpable and want money and power too).
We got a lot of work to do . . . sigh.
Larue –
Thanks for those kind words. Though my work makes me want to howl at the moon and go beserk at the bad odds we all face.
I guess everything is relative 🙂
That said, thanks again, and you have an interesting user name. Add a “de” to the front of it and then Google that and “Sequoia” and see what you’ll find 🙂
FYI larue #6 mentioned the Smirking Chimp. Either the website has crashed or it is old news because the newest thing there is a few years old at about 11:30 PDT 05-02-08.
I’ve been reading Prison Planet, and I’m ready to make my own conspiracy theory. (This is analogous to ‘just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.’)
The more I learn about voter fraud, dead madams, drugs, guns, money, stolen elections, voting machine companies, imprisoned governors, and all the rest, the more I think of the books that my father, a Nazi hater from the gitgo, thrust on to me. From those books (I am not vouching for their veracity) I learned that by the end of WWII, Martin Bormann (who would be 108 y/o on 6-17 so he’s presumably dead) had control of the money of Hitler and all the other heads of the Nazi government, which was estimated in the many multi millions. These books claimed that the money went to South America, and supported many many Nazis (it is a little like “Boys from Brazil”). Maybe Bushco and the Neo-cons are funded by Nazi money.
It would make a good thriller, at least. Sadly, reality is far stranger than fiction.
72dawg
You musta got the wrong page…
or
in the U.S. “11:30 PDT 05-02-08” means yesterday.
[And… well… it would have been today still when larue posted about it….]
[If you’ve just busted yourself for being from my home planet — the exalted Planet X — I’ve heard rumors that the mother ship is nearing and so soon we can blow this pop stand! :-P]
Hey 99, I’m sorry for breaking cardinal rules here, but anybody reading this article should read this and act NOW!
Dear Americans,
We need your help in the next several days to ensure that future voting systems are reliable, accessible, and verifiable. …
BODY OF NOTICE
Remember, Monday May 5 is the deadline.
Thank you for taking your time to comment on this important issue, and thank you for all you do.
The Team at Verified Voting
Don’t have the time to look into this now, but isn’t smartmatic the company that counted the votes in the last Venezuelan election? I remember being impressed when I read that their machines, in Venezuela at least, would print out a paper receipt documenting the voter’s choices.
This actually isn’t that unusual. They probably got a load of bad gasoline, which is the common thread between engines. Bad gas = multiple engine failure in mid-flight.
Ancient –
I replied same on the previous thread where you pointed to same thing…
Anonymous #12 said re: Smartmatic –
Yes, that was them. But don’t be impressed. Printing out a “paper receipt” is easy. Making sure that it actually reflects the voter intent is a different matter entirely (see, for example, Rice University’s study last year showing that two-thirds of voters who even bother to check their computer summary at the end of the voting process, don’t notice vote flips on their ballots!)
A hand-marked paper ballot is the only way to go right now! At least if you want an actually verifiable election result.
I’m guessing you know of the Jeb connection, but fwiw:
-In 2000, the Atlanta-based ChoicePoint Company sold voting data to Jeb’s Florida administration to help him disenfranchise black people and make his brother president. A few years later, Jeb hooked the company up with his brother’s Justice Department to purchase Venezuela’s voting rolls in the leadup to the 2004 recall referendum…
http://www.borev.net/2007/01/jeb_whips_out_his_biiiig_venez.html
Now what could cause both engines to fail at the same time? How about FUEL STARVATION – they forgot to gas up the damn thing before taking off, or left the fuel selector in the wrong position.
Conspiritists go bury your heads in the sand agian.
Dar7yl #17
Does your other brother Dar7yl “think” like you?
Again Brad, Thanks for being the “tenacious blood hound.” Your right, I’m wrong!
hey NapalmGod,you are full of it,you have a better chance in seeing god then both engines failing one after the other,if it was the fuel both would give out at about the same time and not a few minutes apart.i myself think this ongoing battle between chavez and bush is staged for the media,what was a convicted drug smuggler doing on that plane is what catches my eye.
As one working in accident analysis & reconstruction (ground-base vehicles, with exposure & some training in aircraft accidents), I must call the following quote into question:
“…the odds of both engines failing at the same time are simply astronomical.”
The odds against two independent engines suffering MECHANICAL failures simultaneously may be infinitely large, but the chances of two engines faltering due to fuel supply/contamination issues from a shared fuel tank are rather great.
Two engines of course are like 2 cement overshoes.Back in my day, you wanted to be sure your efforts wouldn’t fail.
re: the drug smuggler on the plane?
Come on, he probably was just a guy who was young and foolish and he made a mistake and paid for it, don’t you think?
I love your site, and wonder what à have to do to post this story or a link to it on myspace,, for all my fellow CT’s to read. I’m kind a new to this and just realizing you can’t just copy and paste things.(wow do people ever get mad !)
Thanks……Sashia
Guys, you should check your sources. Some of the things you write in here make no sense whatsoever. Did you check the source that pointed that the pilot was a drug trafficker? Did you check the sources that claimed that Rodriguez Chacin was at the site or hospital? You can’t just read something out there and keep repeating it like parrot. What if your source was quoting somebody else, who was quoting somebody else, who was… That’s outright irresponsible journalism. Please, do us all a favor and check your sources…
Anyway, I can tell you I have been in independent audits done to Smartmatic’s software/hardware in Venezuela, and we in the US would be in a MUCH better position if the technical teams of our political parties, as well as university professors, even independent auditors, were allowed to check the systems’ software and hardware right before EVERY election.
I don’t mean to be demeaning here, but I am very familiar with the system that’s used in Venezuela, and it’s YEARS ahead of us, both in terms of technology and in the quality assurance and audit processes that are enforced prior, during and after each event…
Oh, and did I say you have to check your sources?
Cheers!