CEO of Vote-Counting Company Refused US Entry

For Immediate Release

CEO of Vote-Counting Company Refused Entry into the U.S.

On October 14, 2005, Antonio Mujica, CEO of Smartmatic, was refused entry into the United States. His Visa was revoked by the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela. See (http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200510160629)

Ten months ago, Smartmatic, a Venezuelan-owned company, purchased Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc. for $16 million (U.S.). Sequoia Voting Systems is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic voting systems purchased in the United States. Public access to the company’s vote-counting software is prohibited by trade secret laws.

VotersUnite.Org’s Information Manager, John Gideon said, “The irony of this situation shows how irrational the administration of elections in the U.S. has become. While U.S. law allows this Venezuelan man to control the secret counting of Americans’ votes, the U.S. State Department doesn’t consider him fit to enter the country, even temporarily.”

The organization's Executive Director, Ellen Theisen, added, “It’s also ironic that when we take vote-counting to Iraq, we take it in the form of paper ballots deposited into clear plastic ballot boxes, but in our own country, vote-counting is in the form of electronic ballots and secret software controlled by a man our government has declared ineligible to set foot in the country.”

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(Note: Sequoia Voting Systems counts a majority of the votes in the state of Washington. Their clients are Pierce, Kitsap, Snohomish and many other Washington Counties as well as jurisdictions across the country)

Contact:
Ellen Theisen, Executive Director, VotersUnite.Org
ellen@votersunite.org
(360) 437-9922

John Gideon, Information Manager, VotersUnite.Org
jgideon@votersunite.org
(360) 377-4925

VotersUnite! is a national non-partisan organization dedicated to fair and accurate elections. It focuses on distributing well-researched information to elections officials, elected officials, the media, and the public; as well as providing activists with information they need to work toward transparent elections in their communities.

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