A company that operates election vote counting machines and was put on defense during the 2020 presidential race in the United States with claims of wrong results now has had one of its officials indicted for allegedly bribing election officials in the Philippines to keep and expand its business there.
Business Insider reported the accusations including bribery and money laundering.
A number of theories arose during the 2020 election about whether vote counts were being manipulated. Smartmatic responded with lawsuits against those making the suggestions, while the defendants have argued that scandal, not defamation, caused the company to lose money.
But now American prosecutors allege Smartmatic’s president is guilty of the scheming that happened in the Philippines.
DOJ names Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez, President of Smartmatic, a voting machine company, as one of four indicted today by a federal grand jury for bribery and fraud related to electronic voting systems. https://t.co/BZWE5zZvSV
— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) August 8, 2024
It is Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez, president and cofounder of Smartmatic, who is accused of faking invoices and contracts in the late 2010s to help pay $1 million to Andres Bautista, the former head of the Phillippine elections commission, the DOJ charged.
The company’s name was all over doubts about the 2020 election, the Business Insider report said, “when allies of then-President Donald Trump falsely accused it — and rival election technology company Dominion Voting Systems — of rigging votes to benefit now-President Joe Biden.”
The report noted, “In reality, Smartmatic’s technology was used in only one county during the 2020 election, in Los Angeles. But the indictment can still help Fox News, Newsmax, and other defendants in Smartmatic’s many defamation lawsuits.”
The Business Insider explained, “According to the Justice Department, Piñate, along with another Smartmatic employee, laundered the funds by inflating the cost of each voting machine used in the 2016 Philippine election. The bribery scheme spanned bank accounts in Asia, Europe, and Florida, where the case was brought, prosecutors say.”
Through the bribery of Bautista — a codefendant in the case — Smartmatic retained and expanded its election services in the 2016 election, prosecutors say.
The company, in a statement, explained, “No voter fraud has been alleged and Smartmatic is not indicted.”
The company has still-pending lawsuits against Fox News, Newsmax, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and others. Some of the legal actions are being paid for by Democrat donors.
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