By OBBM Network Editorial Staff

Derived from an episode of Going Rogue With Lara Logan.

What if the very machines that record your vote were built with the ability to rewrite the outcome?

Lara Logan opened her milestone 100th episode by thanking the volunteers who turned a Saturday night into a rally for election integrity. She introduced three guests—Gary Berenson, Martin Rodil and Ralph Pizzulo. Their combined experience ranges from CIA field work in Afghanistan to co‑authoring a book titled Stolen Elections, which details how a foreign‑origin software platform infiltrated American polls.

The Rise of Election‑Machine Software

The conversation traced the evolution of voting technology back to the 2000 presidential contest between George Bush and Al Gore. The controversy over “hanging chads” in Florida spurred the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which funneled billions of federal dollars into modernizing the ballot‑counting process. According to the guests, that modernization created a vacuum that foreign developers were quick to fill.

“We’re not talking about vote fraud, right? Vote fraud has always happened. We’re talking about election fraud,” one guest warned, emphasizing the distinction between isolated illegal votes and a systemic manipulation of the digital record. The guests described how three engineers from Simon Bolívar University—often likened to a South American MIT—created software that could be embedded in voting machines, turning a simple tally into a potential conduit for fraud.

From Florida to the Midwest: A Pattern Emerges

Smartmatic, the company that emerged from those early software experiments, quickly sought contracts across the United States. Its first major domestic test, the guests noted, was the 2008 Democratic primary in Cook County, Illinois, where Barack Obama faced Hillary Clinton. The software, they argued, helped propel Obama to the nomination.

“Smartmatic… they sold it to a company called Liberty Vote,” one guest recalled, pointing out that the same code re‑appeared under a new brand in 2025. The re‑branding, they said, was a tactic to evade scrutiny while keeping the underlying software unchanged.

Investigations and Industry Responses

Federal authorities did take notice. A Treasury‑led probe—referred to in the discussion as the Cepheus investigation—examined Smartmatic’s ownership structure and its ties to Venezuelan interests. The guests said the company’s response was to “sell a fake sale where they did it for just a few dollars,” effectively burying liability beneath layers of corporate entities.

Media coverage, they argued, was inconsistent. Early reports in outlets like The New York Times and Time highlighted the investigation, but later coverage downplayed the findings. One guest lamented, “If you mentioned it in 2020, you were savaged,” underscoring how politically charged the topic has become.

Why the Midterms Matter Now

Logan framed the discussion around the upcoming midterm elections, calling them “arguably the most important election of our lifetime.” The guests agreed that without a reliable voting system, future contests could lose legitimacy. Their work, they said, is not motivated by partisan politics but by a commitment to truth.

“When they do the work that they do, it’s not motivated by politics. It’s motivated by the truth,” one guest asserted, echoing the sentiment that protecting the ballot count is a non‑partisan imperative.

The trio’s investigative efforts, including interviews with former engineers and the publication of Stolen Elections, aim to expose the hidden architecture of America’s voting machines before the next round of contests. Their message to voters is clear: vigilance over the technology that records each vote is essential to preserving democratic choice.

As the nation heads toward the midterms, the episode’s warning serves as a reminder that the battle for election integrity is fought not only in campaign ads but also in the code that tallies every citizen’s voice.

The full episode of Going Rogue With Lara Logan is available on OBBM Network TV.