US prosecutors charge Smartmatic in alleged $1M Philippines bribery case
[October 17, 2025]
By JOSHUA GOODMAN
MIAMI (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged voting technology firm
Smartmatic with money laundering and other crimes arising from more than
$1 million in bribes that several executives allegedly paid to election
officials in the Philippines.
The payments, between 2015 and 2018, were made to obtain a contract with
the Philippines government to help run that country’s 2016 presidential
election and secure the timely payment for its work, according to a
superseding indictment filed Thursday in a Florida federal court.
Three former executives of Smartmatic, including co-founder Roger Pinate,
were previously charged in 2024 but at the time South Florida-based
Smartmatic was not named as a defendant. Pinate, who no longer works for
Smartmatic but remains a shareholder, has pleaded not guilty.
The criminal case is unfolding as Smartmatic is pursuing a $2.7 billion
lawsuit accusing Fox News of defamation for airing false claims that the
company helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election in which Joe
Biden defeated Donald Trump.
Smartmatic in a statement denied the allegations and said it believed
the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami had been misled and politically
influenced by unnamed powerful interests.
“This is again, targeted, political, and unjust,” the company said.
“Smartmatic will continue to stand by its people and principles. We will
not be intimidated by those pulling the strings of power.”
As part of the criminal case, prosecutors in August sought the court’s
permission to introduce evidence they argue shows that revenue from a
$300 million contract with Los Angeles County to help modernize its
voting systems was diverted to a “ slush fund” controlled by Pinate
through the use of overseas shell companies, fake invoices and other
means.
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A Smartmatic representative demonstrates his company's system which
has scanners and touch screens with printout options, at a meeting
of the Secure, Accessible & Fair Elections Commission, Aug. 30,
2018, in Grovetown, Ga. (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via
AP, File)
They also accused Pinate of secretly bribing Venezuela’s longtime
election chief by giving her a luxury home with a pool in Caracas.
Prosecutors say the home was transferred to the election chief in an
attempt to repair relations following Smartmatic’s abrupt exit from
Venezuela in 2017 when it accused President Nicolas Maduro ’s
government of manipulating tallied results in elections for a
rubber-stamping constituent assembly.
A hearing on the purported evidence tied to Los Angeles and
Venezuela will be held next month however none of the accusations
are mentioned in the superseding indictment signed by Jason Reding
Quinones, the new Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of Florida.
Smartmatic was founded more than two decades ago by a group of
Venezuelans who found early success running elections while the late
Hugo Chavez, a devotee of electronic voting, was in power. The
company later expanded globally, providing voting machines and other
technology to help carry out elections in 25 countries, from
Argentina to Zambia.
But Smartmatic has said its business tanked after Fox News gave
Trump’s lawyers a platform to paint the company as part of a
conspiracy to steal the 2020 election.
Fox said it was legitimately reporting on newsworthy events but
eventually aired a piece refuting the allegations after Smartmatic’s
lawyers complained. Nonetheless, it has aggressively defended itself
against the defamation lawsuit in New York — arguing that the
company was facing imminent collapse over its own internal
misconduct, not due to any negative coverage.
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