Suddenly Republicans are concerned about rigged voting machines

Oh, this is just too hilarious. Apparently Sequoia, the voting machine company, was taken over last year by a company called Smartmatic, which has links to anti-Bush Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. So all of a sudden, Republicans are concerned about DRE voting machines:

The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez.

The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation said.

The inquiry on the eve of the midterm elections is being conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, the same panel of 12 government agencies that reviewed the abortive attempt by a company in Dubai to take over operations at six American ports earlier this year.

The committee’s formal inquiry into Smartmatic and its subsidiary, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., was first reported Saturday in The Miami Herald.

Officials of both Smartmatic and the Venezuelan government strongly denied yesterday that President Chávez’s administration, which has been bitterly at odds with Washington, has any role in Smartmatic.

“The government of Venezuela doesn’t have anything to do with the company aside from contracting it for our electoral process,” the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, said last night.

Now if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you. But on the other hand, the sudden concern on the Republican side about Sequoia voting machines, after six years of complete unconcern about the Diebold and ES&S machines that are easily rigged, is kind of interesting. When the lack of security in a voting machine doesn't stand to benefit Republicans, now it's a problem.

The Carter Center only monitors elections in foreign countries. But maybe it's time for it to monitor this election just over a week from now. Because the U.S. has become about as foreign to what it's supposed to stand for as it's possible to be.