Good Question: I don’t know, looks like article just says sequoia are rebranded smartmatic/chavez machines and that Bain/Romney sold in 2010. Would not be surprised IF Mittens/Bain retained stock in Sequoia as part of the deal. NEEDS MORE Research on that transaction. I wonder if Panama Papers would have any info...

Smartmatic was founded by three Venezuelan engineers and incorporated in Delaware with headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida. By 2004, the company had vastly expanded and bought Bizta, an electronic voting company in which Smartmatic and the Venezuelan government both owned large stakes.

In 2005, Smartmatic bought Sequoia, one of the top U.S. companies producing automated voting systems.

U.S. officials began to take notice.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, New York Democrats, in May 2006 wrote to Treasury Secretary John W. Snow demanding an investigation of Venezuelan government influence in U.S. voting systems.

“As you can imagine, having a foreign government invest in or buy a company that services U.S. elections could raise concerns about the integrity of the elections conducted by these machines,” she wrote.

Subsequent scrutiny of Sequoia voting and optical scan machines, which basically were rebranded Smartmatic systems, found tabulation errors similar to those of disputed elections under Chavez in Venezuela.

While under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., Smartmatic in 2006 sold Sequoia to Bain Capital, the corporate raider firm with ties to Sen. Mitt Romney, Utah Republican.

In 2010, Sequoia was purchased by Dominion, at the time a little-known Canadian company that manufactured voting machines.