Sequoia Voting Systems (Jack Blaine)
1983
1983 Sequoia Voting Systems began as Mathematical Systems Corporation of Anaheim, California; the developers of a punched card voting system that served as an alternative to the Votomatic.
1983 Diamond renamed to Sequoia Pacific systems Corporation to kick off their punched-card voting business
On August 26, 2005, Sequoia Voting Systems announced that Mr. Jack Blaine would serve in the dual role as President of Sequoia Voting Systems and President of Sequoia's parent company, Smartmatic.
On August 3, 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen withdrew approval and granted conditional reapproval to Sequoia Voting Systems optical scan and DRE voting machines after a "review of the voting machines certified for use in California in March 2007" found "significant security weaknesses throughout the Sequoia system" and "pervasive structural weaknesses" which raise "serious questions as to whether the Sequoia software can be relied upon to protect the integrity of elections."
In November 2007, following a verdict by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Smartmatic was ordered to sell Sequoia, which it did to its Sequoia managers having U.S. citizenship.
In April 2008, competitor Hart InterCivic attempted a hostile takeover of Sequoia. Court documents unearthed at this time revealed that Smartmatic still retained some financial control over several aspects of Sequoia. At the time, Smartmatic held a $2 million note from SVS Holdings, Inc., the management team which purchased the company from Smartmatic. In accordance to the acquisition contract, Smartmatic also retains ownership of intellectual property rights for some of Sequoia's currently deployed election products in the United States, and holds the right to negotiate overseas non-compete agreements.
Among other bidders, Smartmatic and Sequoia were competitors for the contract to provide voting machines and services to the 2010 national elections in the Philippines, one of the largest contracts ever in the voting technology industry. In the bidding process Sequoia was disqualified early, while Smartmatic was declared the winner.