By Jack Queen
(Reuters) – Three executives of voting technology company Smartmatic have been accused of funneling $1 million in bribes to a former Philippine election official to secure the country’s business, U.S. federal prosecutors in Florida said.
Smartmatic president and co-founder Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, 49, and two co-defendants were charged along with a former chairman of the Philippine Commission on Elections with foreign bribery and money laundering, the US Department of Justice said Thursday.
Smartmatic has not been charged and is not accused of wrongdoing. A statement said the accused employees have been placed on leave.
“There is no voter fraud and Smartmatic has not been charged,” the statement said.
Attorneys for the defendants could not immediately be identified.
The suit comes as Smartmatic sues Fox Corp and conservative commentators for billions of dollars in damages, alleging they defamed the company with false claims that its machines manipulated the 2020 US presidential election.
It’s unclear how the indictment could affect these cases, but Fox could try to use evidence from the criminal case to strengthen its defense.
Federal prosecutors said in a news release that Pinate conspired with two other Smartmatic executives to pay $1 million in bribes to 60-year-old Juan Andres Donato Bautista, the former chairman of the Philippine Commission on Elections, or COMELEC.
Prosecutors said the bribes were paid through a slush fund created by overbilling the cost of voting machines for the 2016 Philippine elections and then disguised in financial documents using coded language.
According to the agency’s website, Bautista was a member of COMELEC from 2015 to 2017. A representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Smartmatic is suing Fox News for $2.7 billion in damages over alleged defamation, with reporting alleging that its voting machines may have helped rig the 2020 US election against then-President Donald Trump and in favor of Joe Biden, who won.
Fox has denied the allegations, saying its reporting of newsworthy allegations against Smartmatic was fair and protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The network settled a similar lawsuit by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million in April 2023.
