I'm not sure if anyone has pointed this out , but I'll lay it out anyway.

What is the connection between Dominion Voting System and Hugo Chavez ?

In 1997, three engineers, Antonio Mugica, Alfredo José Anzola and Roger Piñate, began collaborating in a group while working at Panagroup Corp. in Caracas, Venezuela and founded Smartmatic in 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartmatic

In 2001, Smartmatic announced the following : "Smartmatic was selected a Microsoft Partner-of-the-Year Packaged Application finalist (top-5) during Fusion 2000." https://web.archive.org/web/20010307074546/http://www.smartmatic.com/03.htm

But, why then did Microsoft announce Latin America: Panagroup , Venezuela as one of their MCSP Partner of the Year and not Smartmatic ? https://news.microsoft.com/2000/07/10/microsoft-announces-solution-and-partner-of-the-year-award-finalists/

In March 2005, with a windfall of some $120 million from its first three contracts with Venezuela, Smartmatic then bought the much larger and more established Sequoia Voting Systems .

In June 4, 2010 Dominion Voting Systems Corporation Acquires Assets of Sequoia Voting Systems https://web.archive.org/web/20100716035515/http://dominionvoting.com/news-releases.html