By Brian Tomlinson
American Thinker published my article about Smartmatic voting systems in Venezuela on Sept. 5, 2017, titled How the Venezuelan Elections Were Rigged.
The other day Andrea Widburg published an article citing the “irregularities” that were experienced in the Nov. 3, 2020 elections with Dominion Voting Systems that use Smartmatic software.
What happened in Venezuela is highly relevant to what is happening here and now, so this is how it happened there:
On July 30, 2017, President Nicolas Maduro conjured up a vote to replace the National Assembly (where 67% of the seats were held by opposition representatives) with a new Constituent Assembly whose representatives would be handpicked by Maduro. The fix was in prior to the vote. The president and co-founder of Smartmatic, Antonio Mugica, told the press from his office in London three years ago that his company noticed irregularities in voting during Venezuelan national elections three years ago, amounting to about one million ballots cast over the number of actual voters. (The Wall Street Journal reported how that played out on the ground, here). Of course, this message was not released until the Smartmatic people left Venezuela.
Why would Mugica stir this up? Well, most likely, it was because he had not been paid. He had vast contracts with the Venezuelan government, and Maduro wasn’t paying his bills. The press noise died down shortly thereafter since he was finally paid by Maduro.
Mugica’s associate co-founder of Smartmatic, Alfredo Anzola, is worthy of mention, too. Anzola was a passionate supporter of then-President Hugo Chavez. When Chavez faced his first recall referendum vote in 2003, Chavez needed to act quickly to ensure his Bolivarian revolution would continue.
First, Chavez stalled through his reconfigured Supreme Court (think court-packing comments if Democrats gain control) stating that signatures collected for the recall vote were invalid. As Chavez continued his electoral kabuki dance, he engaged a company, SBC, to devise computerized voting systems to be used in national elections for the first time. SBC was comprised of Smartmatic, a Venezuelan-owned computer company based in Boca Raton, Florida and Sunnyvale, California; Bizta, a Venezuelan company of seven people, based in Caracas; and CANTV, the Chavez government’s partially owned telecommunications company, with 28% stake.
The August 2004 recall referendum, held a year late, resulted in a startling victory for Chavez, garnering 58% of the vote to have him stay, versus exit polling from Penn, Schoen & Berland which showed the exact opposite. Oddly enough, the computerized voting systems sold and managed by Smartmatic were “bidirectionally networked” to communicate with CANTV (the government-controlled telecommunications company and partner of Smartmatic). Basic Boolean algebra was that a “1” became a “0” and vice versa at the central server. Local printers showed people how they had actually voted.
Yet there was no collusion, according to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who witnessed the voting on behalf of the U.S.-appointed observer, the Carter Center, and then stated that there were less than 0.1% irregularities. Carter “applauded” (his own words) Venezuela’s use of electronic voting but in recent years has tried to walk them back.
In early 2008, Alfredo Anzola was getting a new contract with the CNE (National Electoral Council) from his paramour’s brother, then-CNE President Jorge Rodriguez. In April 2008, he complained openly about irregularities in his contracted scope of work including software changes. Shortly after, Anzola was involved in a small plane crash in Catia La Mar. He was rushed to a hospital where the Rodriguez’s and Chavez buddy, Diosdado Cabello (considered the most powerful man in Venezuela, after Chavez), looked over him while he died.
Cabello presided over the National Assembly with Chavez’s initial constitutional change. He has since been credibly accused by the U.S. Treasury of international drug trafficking as kingpin of the “Sun Cartel.“
And not because he suddenly realized Chavez was a scumbag. He walked them back because the truth was leaking out.
Interestingly, as an indication of left wing credibility, when that statement (which also has the audio version) is cited, it rains “fact checks” stating it is false, inaccurate and “out of context”. In other words, don’t believe your lying eyes and ears because knowing the truth is bad for Democrats.
@Deplorable Me: Ah yes fact checks, they seem to not have existed until the truth began to leak.
@kitt: Should be called “fact doubt”. That’s their goal; cast doubts on facts they don’t want exposed. As if they could hide the fact Biden is a babbling idiot.
Nothing to see here.