The official noted similarities between the 2020 U.S. elections and 2004 Venezuela referendum elections, most notably the sudden stop on ballot counting. President Donald Trump said during a Nov. 4 speech that vote counting in a number of states he was leading had been "called off" without explanation earlier that day, which suggested potential cheating and vote fraud.
The events in Venezuela 16 years ago appear to be coincidental, with the official sharing what happened in the country that time: "At midnight of the [June 2004] election, the machines were counting. At 3:00 a.m., Chávez suddenly won by ten percent; before [that time], the result was opposite."
The ex-CIA official pointed to another instance of vote fraud mentioned in a Nov. 25 Philadelphia hearing, in which observers testified that the city's election board processed hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots with "zero civilian oversight or observation."
Lawyer and certified canvass observer Justin C. Kweder told Pennsylvania state lawmakers during the hearing that what he saw "was problematic to say the least." Kweder then proceeded how the Philadelphia Board of Elections prevented observers from scrutinizing the canvass. "The board of elections erected a fence about 50 feet tall into the hall that ran the length of the room: All observers were corralled behind the fence," the lawyer said, adding that "more than a hundred" workers were processing mail-in ballots on the other side.
Venezuela election officials had been instructed to do the exact same thing to help Chávez win the 2004 referendum, the former intelligence officer said. "They have a manual … [to] tell you exactly what you need to do in order to execute the [election] fraud," he added.
Smartmatic played an important role in ensuring Chávez remains president
The official described how Chávez, which he called "a new kind of dictator," managed to stay in power from 1999 until his death in 2013. As soon as he assumed the presidency, Chávez revised the country's constitution to increase the presidential term of office from five to six years and allow people to call off his presidency through a referendum.
By 2003, the Venezuelan president's opponents had managed to collect enough signatures: Any referendum required 20 percent of signatures of all 11 million voters in the country. "That's when he started to panic," the former official said.
Chávez then talked to the Spanish firm Indra for this endeavor, but the technology it used that time was not flexible enough to do what the Venezuelan president wanted. He then turned to Smartmatic, which was founded by three Venezuelan engineers. Smartmatic subsequently received a US$150 million contract to overhaul the country's election system ahead of the 2004 referendum, which it then used to purchase voting machines from Italian company Olivetti. (Related: Voting machines are a totalitarian tool dressed in a coat of democracy: Ex-intelligence official.)
Since Smartmatic took over vote, Chávez has not lost any election since that referendum no matter how much opposition he faced. A Nov. 16 affidavit signed by a high-ranking military officer attested to this fact, saying that Smartmatic was part of a scheme to interfere with Venezuela's election results and ensure Chávez wins. The whistleblower said the scheme manipulated poll results in favor of Chávez during different elections – most notably in 2006 when Chávez received six million votes, while his rival Manuel Rosales received 3.7 million votes.
The multinational voting software firm denied allegations that it was involved in vote fraud in both countries. Smartmatic told The Epoch Times through an emailed statement: "Over the last two decades, we have registered and counted nearly 5 billion auditable votes without a single spoiled vote or security breach. We designed our technology to enable all election stakeholders [to] audit the entire process, [and our] software has been open to audits by all political parties in all countries where we operate." (Related: Giuliani: Votes from 28 states were sent to Germany and Spain to be fraudulently rigged by Smartmatic.)
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