Sequoia Voting Systems

Sequoia Voting Systems is a California-based company that isone of the largest providers of electronic voting systems in the U.S. Some of its major competitors are Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) and Election Systems & Software.

Company history

Sequoia has been involved with voting systems for more than 100 years. At the end of the 19th century, Sequoia invented the lever-action mechanical voting system. Many machines of this type are still used today in some U.S. jurisdictions. Sequoia was a subsidiary of De La Rue, a British printing and security company. On 8 March 2005 Sequoia was acquired by Smartmatic, a Venezuelan company which had a voting machine business there. In November 2007, Smartmatic sold Sequoia to its American management. [Cite news
title = U.S. Voting Technology Leader Sequoia Voting Systems Announces New Corporate Ownership
work = Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc.
accessdate = 2008-04-06
date = 2007-11-08
url = http://www.sequoiavote.com/pressText.php?pressIn=41]

Controversies

California decertification/recertification

On August 3, 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen withdrew approval and granted conditional reapprovalcite web
title = Withdrawal of Approval of Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc., WinEDS v 3.1.012/AVC Edge/Insight/Optech 400-C DRE & Optical Scan Voting System and Conditional Re-approval of Use of Sequoia Voting Systems, Inc., WinEDS v 3.1.012/AVC Edge/Insight/Optech 400-C DRE & Optical Scan Voting System
publisher = California Secretary of State
date = 2007-08-03
url = http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/ttbr/sequoia.pdf
accessdate = 2007-08-15] to Sequoia Voting Systems optical scan and DRE voting machines after a "review of the voting machines certified for use in California in March 2007" found "significant security weaknesses throughout the Sequoia system"cite web
title = Source Code Review of the Sequoia Voting System
publisher = California Secretary of State
author = Matt Blaze, Arel Cordero, Sophie Engle, Chris Karlof, Naveen Sastry, Micah Sherr, Till Stegers, Ka-Ping Yee
date = 2007-07-20
url = http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/ttbr/sequoia-source-public-jul26.pdf
accessdate = 2008-02-21] and "pervasive structural weaknesses" which raise "serious questions as to whether the Sequoia software can be relied upon to protect the integrity of elections."

“Hanging chads" controversy

A 2007 investigative report by Dan Rather charged Sequoia with deliberately supplying poor quality punch-card ballots to Palm Beach County, Florida for the 2000 election. According to former Sequoia employees, the ballots for Palm Beach County were produced with paper and manufacturing processes that were outside of normal specifications. This supposedly caused all of the problems with "hanging chads". When quality problems were found, Sequoia management ordered the production workers to ignore them. One worker speculated that the object was to discredit punch-card ballots and thus promote sales of electronic voting machines. [cite web
url=http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2560&Itemid=51
title=Vendors - Sequoia Voting Systems Responsible for 2000 Presidential Debacle?
publisher=VoteTrustUSA
author=Kim Zetter
date=2007-08-20
language=English]

Florida touch-screen replacement

After the 2000 election problems, Florida required its counties to replace punch-card voting systems with touch-screen systems. Some of these were purchased from Sequoia. However, there were some major problems with these systems, and in 2007 Florida ordered the counties to replace the touch-screens with optical-scan systems by 1 July 2008. Sequoia offered to buy back its units for $1 each. This offer was rejected. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/us/politics/13voting.htm?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1192385183-xpM7vXNirZ37b4eZawUzng Voting Machines Giving Florida New Headache, "New York Times", 10/13/2007] ]

Threat of legal action against Professor Edward Felten

In early 2008, New Jersey election officials announced that they planned to send one or more Sequoia Advantage voting machines to Professors Edward Felten and Andrew Appel of Princeton University for analysis. Felten and Appel are computer scientists interested in security issues, especially in regard to electronic voting systems. In March 2008, Sequoia sent an e-mail to Professor Felten asserting that allowing him to examine Sequoia voting machines would violate the license agreement between Sequoia and the county which bought them, and also that Sequoia would take legal action "to stop... non-compliant analysis... publication of Sequoia software... or any other infringement of our intellectual property." [cite web
url=http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1265
title=Interesting e-mail by Sequoia
publisher=
author=Ed Felten
date=2008-03-17
language=English] This action sparked outrage among computer technology activists. [cite web
url=http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080317/185348564.shtml
title=E-Voting Firm Threatens Ed Felten If He Reviews Its E-Voting Machine
publisher=Techdirt
author=
date=2008-03-18
language=English] Cory Doctorow commented "It's hard to imagine a stupider legal threat." [cite web
url=http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/17/sequoia-voting-syste.html
title=Sequoia Voting Systems threatens Felten's Princeton security research team
publisher=BoingBoing
author=Cory Doctorow
date=2008-03-17
language=English]

Shortly after this, Sequoia's corporate Web site was hacked. Ironically, the hack was first discovered by Ed Felten. Sequoia took its Web site down on 20 March and removed the "intrusive content". [cite news|url=http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Sequoia_Voting_Systems_Admits_To_Hackers_Attacking_Their_Website_15405.html|title=Sequoia Voting Systems Admits To Hackers Attacking Their Website|publisher=eFluxMedia|author=Dee Chisamera|date=2008-03-21]

Continuing control of Sequoia by Smartmatic

In April 2008, competitor Hart InterCivic attempted a hostile takeover attempt of Sequoia. Court documents unearthed at this time revealed that Smartmatic retains control over several aspects of Sequoia. SmartMatic holds a $2 million note from SVS Holdings, Inc., the management team which purchased the company from Smartmatic. SmartMatic also owns Intellectual Property rights for all of Sequoia's currently deployed voting systems in the United States, and holds the right to negotiate overseas non-compete agreements.

The CEO and President of Sequoia and SVS Holdings was Jack Blaine. During a conference call with company employees, Blaine admitted that SVS/Sequoia did not control the Intellectual Property of Sequoia voting machines, but SmartMatic did.

These arrangements may be in violation of an agreement between Sequoia and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) of the U.S. Treasury Department. CFIUS had been reviewing the ties between Sequoia, Smartmatic, and the government of Venezuela. CFIUS dropped the investigation when SmartMatic agreed to divest Sequoia, in a deal which purportedly sold off all control of Sequoia to SVS Holdings.

ee also

*2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, voting machines.
*Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004

References

External links

* [http://www.sequoiavote.com/ Company Website]
* [http://www.smartmatic.com Smartmatic International]
* [http://votingmachines.procon.org/viewsource.asp?ID=1043 ProCon.org's Sequoia Profile]