(LifeSiteNews) — With indications of multiple motivations for the U.S. attack on Venezuela and capture of President Nicolás Maduro circulating in the west, proposals have also emerged suggesting the Trump administration is additionally addressing election fraud crimes that many allege originate from the South American nation.
Since at least 2004, concerns of fraudulent voting systems emanating from a company associated with Venezuela nationals, and at least partially owned by their government, have appeared sporadically in media both locally and abroad in the United States.
According to a CNN report at the time, the Venezuelan government owned 28% of Bista, a company that adapted software for voting machines manufactured by Smartmatic, a corporation also owned by businessmen from the nation.
Smartmatic reportedly advanced into the United States with the purchase of competitor Sequoia and grew into what is described as a labyrinth of international holding companies owned by Venezuelan businessmen.
The mainstream outlet provided testimony asserting that these voting machines manipulated results providing Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to remain in power during successive elections.
Speculations have also been encouraged by a letter released early last month from the former Director of Military Intelligence for Venezuela alleging that Smartmatic machines have been used to keep that nation’s government in power and was also provided to the United States as well.
“Smartmatic was born as an electoral tool of the Venezuelan regime but soon derived into a tool to help keep the regime stay in power forever,” former three-star general Hugo Carvajal Barrios wrote.
“The Smartmatic system can be altered — this is a fact. This technology was later exported abroad, including to the United States. Regime operatives maintain relationships with election officials and voting-machine companies inside your country,” he affirmed.
“I do not claim that every election is stolen, but I state with certainty that elections can be rigged with the software – and has been used to do so,” he said.
It must, however, be acknowledged that Carvajal’s letter was issued from an American federal prison where he awaits sentencing for the crime of narco-terrorism conspiracy that he pleaded guilty to in June.
As reported by The Dallas Express that broke the story, “(i)f federal prosecutors deem his cooperation ‘substantial assistance,’ it could reduce his sentencing exposure.”
With this in mind, at least one commentator observed that Carvajal had adopted Trump campaign themes such as election fraud in his letter as an effective approach to win favor and have his sentence reduced.
Also indicating that easily rigged voting machines coming from Venezuela were on the mind of President Donald Trump at this time are two of his recent re-posts on Truth Social addressing the issue.
The first demonstrates how similar voting systems from a company called “Dominion” can be easily rigged, while the second recalls a testimony by widely-respected former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer assessing that the 2020 election had been manipulated electronically by these same machines. This at least amounted to “foreign interference in the American election” since Dominion is a Canadian company, which was storing data in Germany and Spain as well, he said, adding “part of the Central Intelligence Agency” was likely behind the rigging of the 2020 election as well.
In a Monday comment on the capture of Maduro, Scheuer opined that the Venezuelan president may be “a key to finally bringing closure to the rigged elections America has suffered through since at least 1920” since he and his “lieutenants are reported to be in charge of producing the vote-counting machines that have been used for fixing U.S. elections,” and his testimony in this regard could be decisive.
I have a feeling capturing Maduro was about a lot more than just drugs and oil. pic.twitter.com/5KE9r5V8fu
— Eric Spracklen 🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) January 4, 2026
Dominion voting machines have been under investigation for malfunctioning in states like Michigan due to concerns during the 2020 and 2024 elections.
There were multiple claims regarding the faulty nature of Dominion voting machines in 2020 to the extent the company was so concerned about its product’s reputation that it sued many commenters and even settled a suit with Fox for hundreds of millions of dollars.
The United States government captured Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores early Saturday morning and flew them out of the country in a military operation that stunned the world. The captives were transported to New York, where they will face drugs and weapons charges, according to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Maduro’s charges include “narco-terrorism conspiracy,” “cocaine importation conspiracy,” “possession of machineguns and destructive devices,” and “conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices,” according to an indictment filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in a New York federal court.
