Ralph Pezzullo, a bestselling author, discusses his self-published book Stolen Elections: The Takeover of Democracies Worldwide, which exposes a global election-manipulation system originating in Venezuela and involving China, Iran, Russia, and Cuba. The system uses voting machine software developed by Smartmatic and Dominion to steal elections worldwide, including in the United States, and is tied to drug trafficking, money laundering, and deliberate social destabilization. The book was originally set to be published by Skyhorse, but the publisher pulled out at the last minute, Pezzullo says, likely due to threats from powerful interests.
The whistleblowers behind the investigation
The investigation was led by two independent whistleblowers: Martin Rodil, a Venezuelan former DEA agent and financial crimes expert, and Gary Bernson, a former CIA officer who led post-9/11 operations in Afghanistan.
They were originally investigating the Cartel de los Soles—a network of Venezuelan military and government officials who control most drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere—on behalf of the Treasury Department’s whistleblower program.
Their sources inside the cartel revealed that the same regime had developed voting machine software to manipulate elections, first in Venezuela and then globally.
After the 2020 U.S. election, they pivoted to investigating election fraud full-time, spending an estimated $5 million of their own money over three years.
They recruited 20 engineers from within Smartmatic, Dominion, and Venezuela’s National Electoral Council who provided the source code and detailed evidence of how the system works.
They presented their findings to the FBI, members of Congress, and the Trump administration, but were largely ignored or actively threatened—one senior FBI official told them to flee the country or face arrest.
They relocated the engineers and their families to a foreign country, setting up a secure computer lab to continue the work, partially funded by Patrick Byrne, former CEO of Overstock.com.
How the voting machine system works
The software was originally developed in the early 2000s by three engineers from Simon Bolivar University (Venezuela’s equivalent of MIT), recruited by Hugo Chávez’s regime after polls showed he would lose a 2004 recall referendum.
They first installed the software in Olivetti touchscreen lottery machines to run the 2004 referendum, successfully stealing the result for Chávez.
Fidel Castro, who had a close mentor-like relationship with Chávez, was thrilled—he had spent decades trying to install communist governments through guerrilla warfare, and this was far more efficient.
The system was refined and exported across Latin America through a company called Smartmatic, which was secretly owned by the Venezuelan government.
Smartmatic disguised its Venezuelan origins through corporate shell games, including acquiring a U.S. company called Sequoia.
A 2006 embassy cable from Caracas and a warning letter from Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney both raised alarms about Smartmatic’s foreign ownership, but were ignored.
The software has 14 built-in back doors that allow operators to manipulate elections in various ways.
When a district contracts with Smartmatic or Dominion, the company receives full voter rolls—including who voted, party affiliation, deceased voters, and those who moved—allowing them to plan manipulation a year in advance.
Votes are switched via touchscreen machines that are supposed to be offline but are actually connected to servers in Belgrade, Serbia, running on Chinese Huawei hardware.
Machine parts are manufactured in China, shipped to Taiwan, and relabeled “Made in Taiwan” to disguise their origin.
The system was used in the U.S. starting around 2006–2007, initially in select districts, and has since expanded significantly.
About 33 key swing districts determine most national and statewide election outcomes.
The whistleblowers believe all major U.S. voting machine companies (Dominion, Smartmatic, Hart InterCivic, ES&S) are using variants of the same compromised software.
The global reach of the system
Through a USAID program called SEPS (Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening), U.S. taxpayer money was used to promote this software to 72 countries worldwide.
SEPS was run through the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the International Federation for Election Systems—giving it bipartisan cover.
U.S. ambassadors pressured foreign governments (e.g., Guatemala) to adopt the system, claiming it was infallible and more efficient.
The system was also used as a tool of U.S. intelligence—the CIA became aware of it around 2018 and reportedly used it to influence elections in other countries.
This created a conundrum for the Trump administration: exposing the fraud would reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies had also exploited the same system, damaging relationships with allied nations.
Intelligence agencies successfully argued to President Trump that the risks of disclosure outweighed the benefits, effectively killing the investigation.
Fox News, Dominion, and media suppression
Fox News settled its Dominion lawsuit for $787 million rather than fight the case in court.
The whistleblowers had offered Fox News lawyers their full evidence—including testimony from 20 engineers inside the conspiracy—which would have provided a strong defense.
Fox’s lawyers declined the evidence, leading Pezzullo and the whistleblowers to believe the settlement was designed to scare all media organizations away from covering election fraud.
The source of the settlement money is suspected to be external, and a White House lawyer is reportedly investigating where it came from.
The Cartel de los Soles and drug trafficking
The Cartel de los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”) is not a traditional cartel but a decentralized network of high-ranking Venezuelan military and government officials who control drug trafficking across the Western Hemisphere.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, giving the regime enormous financial resources.
The cartel controls coca growers in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru; processing labs in Colombia; and distribution networks.
Mexican cartels (including Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation) collaborate with but are not controlled by the Cartel de los Soles—the Venezuelans act as the “executive suite,” providing military hardware, planes, and legitimate government cover.
Cocaine is shipped to the U.S. on oil tankers into Houston, and the proceeds are laundered through Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA and Chevron.
The cartel generates trillions of dollars, which it uses to fund lobbying firms, top Washington law firms, and political figures in both parties.
Drug money also funded organizations like Open Societies Foundations and Black Lives Matter, which appeared to be organic U.S. movements but were partially financed by foreign adversaries to create social division.
China, Iran, and Russia’s involvement
China, Iran, and Russia all joined the Venezuelan-led consortium, contributing capital and technical expertise to perfect the software.
This was part of China’s “unrestricted warfare” strategy—a doctrine written by two Chinese colonels that advocates corroding an enemy from within through drugs, social media, corruption, and institutional subversion rather than direct military confrontation.
The Chinese involvement is rooted in the “century of humiliation” narrative—the CCP’s view that China was brought down by Western imperialism starting with the Opium Wars, and that restoring China’s dominance is a historical imperative.
Iran established drone and missile bases in Venezuela aimed at Florida, using technology and components shipped from Iran. The partnership began under Chávez in 2012 and evolved to include armed drones based on Iran’s Mohajer-2 design.
China, Russia, and Iran tapped into undersea communications cables in the Caribbean, intercepting sensitive U.S. government communications—including White House conversations.
This was reportedly raised by Putin during his 2025 meeting with Trump in Alaska, which ended abruptly after Putin accused the U.S. of spying through Venezuelan-assisted cable taps.
90% of Iran’s oil exports go to China, making Iran a critical energy supplier and strategic partner.
Why Trump was “allowed” to win in 2016
According to the engineers interviewed, the foreign consortium initially viewed Hillary Clinton as a more formidable adversary than Donald Trump, who they saw as inexperienced in foreign policy.
They allowed Trump to win in 2016, then quickly regretted it when he imposed sanctions on Venezuelan leadership.
In 2020, they were determined to remove him, and the engineers confirmed the system was used extensively against him.
Polling companies and auditors are compromised
The whistleblowers discovered that polling companies and election auditors have been penetrated by the same network.
Frank Holder, a triple agent who worked for Cuba, Hugo Chávez, and the CIA, invested in high-level security and compliance firms including Crawford International and Berkeley Research Group (BRG).
After the 2020 election, the Trump administration hired BRG to investigate election fraud—unknowingly hiring a firm run by someone who had helped orchestrate the fraud.
BRG’s report found no irregularities, and it was widely cited by the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal as proof that Trump’s claims were baseless.
Maduro’s arrest and the prospect of a confession
After the U.S. captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Pezzullo’s source (Professor Jaing, a Chinese analyst) theorized that Trump would offer Maduro a deal: confess to stealing the 2020 election in exchange for leniency, and use that confession as leverage to justify a third presidential term.
Hugo Carvajal, Venezuela’s former intelligence chief now imprisoned in Brooklyn, has written to President Trump offering to testify about the election theft and Iran’s military installations in Venezuela.
Carvajal claims he had a monitor on his desk connected to Smartmatic that showed vote totals changing in real time.
Chávez’s former head of security, now living in the U.S., told the whistleblowers that before the 2008 election, Chávez said: “Watch me. I’m going to elect the first African-American leader of the United States.”
Smartmatic deployed a team of 18 engineers to Cook County, Illinois during the 2008 Democratic primary, where Obama’s surprise victory over Hillary Clinton in a Democratic stronghold launched his national campaign.
Biden’s “voter fraud” slip
In October 2020, Joe Biden said on the podcast Pod Save America: “We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”
The clip went viral and was cited by Trump supporters as a confession.
Fact-checkers claimed Biden misspoke and meant “voter protection,” but the whistleblowers and Pezzullo take it as an inadvertent admission.
Trend de Aragua and border security
Trend de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang, was created by the Chávez regime as a secret police force to eliminate political enemies.
Under Biden’s open border policy, members entered the U.S. and were deployed as chaos agents—committing murders, rapes, drug dealing, and intimidation in American communities.
Their purpose was to destabilize the U.S. from within, consistent with the unrestricted warfare strategy.
California as a case study in decline
California, despite having the world’s fourth-largest GDP (over $4 trillion, recently surpassing Japan), is experiencing severe infrastructure decay, homelessness, and economic dysfunction.
Pezzullo attributes this to the concentration of wealth in a handful of tech giants while the broader population suffers.
The state lost its entertainment industry because it failed to offer tax incentives that other states provided.
Los Angeles County elections are run on Smartmatic machines, and Pezzullo cites the 2022 Karen Bass mayoral race as suspicious—her opponent (Rick Caruso) led in early results, but after a 10-day count, Bass was declared the winner.
Spencer Pratt has emerged as a surprising contender in the upcoming November 2025 Los Angeles mayoral election, polling at 10–11% against Bass.
The book and its reception
Stolen Elections was self-published after Skyhorse pulled out, with the publisher claiming they would be sued and lose their business.
The evidence in the book has been turned over to the Justice Department and FBI and has been verified by defectors from the Maduro regime.
Pezzullo has received minor pushback on small technical details (e.g., specific machine model numbers) but no substantive challenges to the core claims.
