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Sidney Powell was recently quoted as saying,
"The Dominion Voting Systems, the Smartmatic technology software, and the software that goes in other computerized voting systems here as well, not just Dominion, were created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez" Powell declared.
Is any part of this true?
It seems the root of this claim can be found in "Exhibit N" of the Lin Wood v. Raffensperger case in Georgia. "Exhibit N" is an affidavit labeled "Redacted Declaration"
The contents of it that pertain to the Venezuela/Chavez connection are as follows,
- Importantly, I was a direct witness to the creation and operation of an electronic voting system in a conspiracy between a company known as Smartmatic and the leaders of conspiracy with the Venezuelan government. This conspiracy specifically involved President Hugo Chavez Frias, the person in charge of the National Electoral Council named Jorge Rodriguez, and principals, representatives, and personnel from Smartmatic which included. The purpose of this conspiracy was to create and operate a voting system that could change the votes in elections from votes against persons running the Venezuelan government to votes in their favor in order to maintain control of the government.
And then again,
- After passage of the referendum, President Chavez instructed me to make arrangements for him to meet with Jorge Rodriguez, then President of the National Electoral Council, and three executives from Smartmatic. Among the three Smartmatic representatives were [REDACTED]. President Chavez had multiple meetings with Rodriguez and the Smartmatic team at which I was present. In the first of four meetings, Jorge Rodriguez promoted the idea to create software that would manipulate elections. Chavez was very excited and made it clear that he would provide whatever Smartmatic needed. He wanted them immediately to create a voting system which would ensure that any time anything was going to be voted on the voting system would guarantee results that Chavez wanted. Chavez offered Smartmatic many inducements, including large sums of money, for Smartmatic to create or modify the voting system so that it would guarantee Chavez would win every election cycle. Smartmatic’s team agreed to create such a system and did so.
And lastely,
- Chavez was most insistent that Smartmatic design the system in a way that the system could change the vote of each voter without being detected. He wanted the software itself to function in such a manner that if the voter were to place their thumb print or fingerprint on a scanner, then the thumbprint would be tied to a record of the voter’s name and identity as having voted, but that voter would not tracked to the changed vote. He made it clear that the system would have to be setup to not leave any evidence of the changed vote for a specific voter and that there would be no evidence to show and nothing to contradict that the name or the fingerprint or thumb print was going with a changed vote. Smartmatic agreed to create such a system and produced the software and hardware that accomplished that result for President Chavez.
Note this a personal abridgment of the claims with Venezuela. I suggest reading the entire affidavit if interested. The testimony of Sidney Powell does accurately reflect the description given in the affidavit.
I don't see how any of these claims can be validated without an inquiry and the government coercing the production of relevant documents. However, according to Reuters only Los Angeles County used Smartmatic software, so it seems that even if Smartmatic were some communist conspiracy it still couldn't have impacted the outcome of the presidential election.
Thanks to ff524 for his contribution of the link.