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"Smartmatic, of Sequoia Voting Systems infamy, is taking its ball and going home, after becoming fed up with the intense public scrutiny its voting systems have received. \"Given the current climate of the United States marketplace with so much public debate over foreign ownership of firms in an area that is viewed as critical U.S. infrastructure -- election technology -- we feel it is in both companies' best interests to move forward as separate entities with separate ownership,\" said Antonio Mugica, president of Smartmatic. Of course, we really would've just been happy with a voting system that didn't, say, have the ability to register multiple votes per voter, but we suppose that's too much to ask. A big stink has been raised in regards to Smartmatic's Venezuelan ownership and some supposed ties to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, and it appears Smartmatic isn't up for the fight. Smartmatic had previously agreed to an investigation by the US Treasury Department, but now that they're putting Sequoia on the auction block, they've withdrawn from the review process. Any takers?[Via Techdirt]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/28/smartmatic-bails-from-e-voting-biz-after-media-heat/>