Ha, Ha, Hee, Snicker, Giggle, Snort, . . . Haaa, Haaa

So the NY Times is reporting that CFIUS - the same panel that initially OKed the Dubai port deal is investigating as to whether Hugo Chavez has any control or influence over the e-voting software. Snicker, snicker, tee, hee. giggle . . .

I can't control my giggling -- just when they thought they had the fix in -- Hugo Chavez may be operating the curtain. Just deserts!


October 29, 2006
U.S. Investigates Voting Machines’ Venezuela Ties
By TIM GOLDEN
The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez.

The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation said.

The inquiry on the eve of the midterm elections is being conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, the same panel of 12 government agencies that reviewed the abortive attempt by a company in Dubai to take over operations at six American ports earlier this year.

The committee’s formal inquiry into Smartmatic and its subsidiary, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., was first reported Saturday in The Miami Herald. . . .

But after a municipal primary election in Chicago in March, Sequoia voting machines were blamed for a series of delays and irregularities. Smartmatic’s new president, Jack A. Blaine, acknowledged in a public hearing that Smartmatic workers had been flown up from Venezuela to help with the vote.

Some problems with the election were later blamed on a software component, which transmits the voting results to a central computer, that was developed in Venezuela.