Electronic Voting Firm Used In Utah Has Ties To Soros
Smartmatic Group, an electronic voting firm whose worldwide headquarters is located in the United Kingdom, ran the online balloting process in the Utah Republican Open Caucuses on Tuesday.
The chairman of Smartmatic’s board, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, currently serves on the board of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and has close ties to the billionaire.
The Wall Street Journal dubbed the Republican party’s online adventure on Tuesday as “one of the biggest online votes conducted so far in the U.S.” and the “largest experiment with online presidential voting since 2004, when Michigan allowed Democrats to vote in a party caucus via the Internet.”
“We expect all the jurisdictions across the U.S. to take notice and to look at this experience as something to study and, hopefully, follow,” said Antonio Mugica, founder and chief executive of Smartmatic Group, an election-equipment vendor that is running the Utah election.
Mugica addressed security concerns about online voting, telling the Journal that Smartmatic has security protocols and backups of the election data should a recount be needed. He said he wasn’t aware of any security breaches.
The Journal did not cite the biography of Malloch-Brown, chairman of Smartmatic’s board. That biography is posted openly on Smartmatic’s website, and shows close associations between Malloch-Brown and Soros, a major donor to the Democratic Party and hundreds of liberal and radical-left groups.
The bio states: “Mark Malloch-Brown is a former number two in the United Nations as well as having served in the British Cabinet and Foreign Office. He now sits in the House of Lords and is active both in business and in the non-profit world. He also remains deeply involved in international affairs….
“Other positions have included vice-chairman of George Soros’s Investment Funds, as well as his Open Society Institute….”
Besides formerly serving as vice-chairman of Soros’s Investment Funds and the billionaire’s Open Society Institute, Malloch-Brown is currently a global board member of Soros’s Open Society Foundation.
As further documented in his Smartmatic Group bio, Malloch-Brown also serves on the small board of the International Crisis Group, a Soros-financed international crisis management organization. Soros himself sits on the ICG’s small board.
Obama last week called for future online voting while speaking at the South by Southwest technology and music festival. He said the technology world should debate “how can we create safe, secure, smart systems for people to be able to vote much easier online.”
In January 2014, Obama’s 10-person Presidential Commission on Election Administration released its recommendations for reforming the U.S. election process, including transitioning to voting via tablet computers and other technologies.
Two Hamas Commanders Defect To ISIS
Hamas’s military wing suffered a blow last week as two of its top commanders crossed the Gaza-Egypt border and joined ISIS in Sinai, senior militant sources in Gaza told Breitbart Jerusalem.
Abu Malek Abu Shawish, co-founder of a commando unit that carries out what Hamas calls “missions behind enemy lines,” and Khaled Abu Azra, one of the movement’s regional commanders in the Rafah area, crossed from Gaza into Egypt via one of Hamas’s cross-border tunnels accompanied by their families, the sources said.
It remains unclear whether the duo plan to collaborate with ISIS in Sinai or continue on to Syria, Iraq, or Libya, ISIS’s most recently established stronghold.
Contacted by Breitbart Jerusalem, Gaza sources confirmed the report and said that Hamas’s top brass were shocked at the news, all the more so given the movement’s recent efforts to “educate” its activists in the justice of its cause.
Members who have recently been suspected of dual loyalty have been expelled from the organization, as Breitbart Jerusalem previously reported.
Hamas has sought to downplay the incident, fearing any discussion may tip the balance for other hesitant members. According to estimates, some 200 Hamas activists have fought for ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, some to the death.