Employees of Smartmatic, the U.K.-headquartered election technology company, face accusations from federal prosecutors of systematically overbilling Los Angeles County for voting machines used in the 2020 election.
The company allegedly used the surplus funds to create a “slush fund” for bribing government officials, according to a criminal case against three company executives.
Smartmatic is involved in a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News after the network claimed it was involved in conspiracy theories to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Joe Biden defeated the incumbent president in both the popular vote and the Electoral College.
Prosecutors in a Florida federal corruption case against Smartmatic co-founder Roger Alejandro Piñate Martinez and two other company officials allege that bribery was part of the company’s business model.
While the recipients of the alleged misuse of county taxpayer money have not been identified, Dean Logan, the county’s top voting official, has reported having regular meetings with Piñate, The Los Angeles Times reports.
The allegations also extend internationally with prosecutors claiming similar schemes occurred in the Philippines and Venezuela.
Last year, Piñate was charged with bribery and money laundering in the Philippines, where executives are accused of inflating voting machine prices to secure $182 million (£135 million) in contracts for its 2016 election to bribe a top election official.
In Venezuela, Smartmatic employees are said to have used a similar fund to buy a home with a pool for a long-time elections official in 2019. This detail surfaced in an August 1 court filing in the Philippines corruption case.
In Los Angeles County, where Smartmatic won a $209 million contract for the 2020 election — considered the largest election technology deal in U.S. history — the company allegedly used county money to create a similar type of slush fund.
Prosecutors plan to present financial and business records, witness testimony, and electronic communications to strengthen their case, which they claim reveals a broader pattern of bribery.
According to the August 1 filing, the company is accused of regularly adding a surplus fee of $10 to $50 per machine sent to the three jurisdictions, with these funds designated for bribes. Federal prosecutors declined to comment on the ongoing criminal case when contacted by the LA Times.
Logan, the county’s registrar-recorder, stated: “The county has no knowledge or visibility into how Smartmatic USA used proceeds from that contract. The contract between Los Angeles County and Smartmatic USA was competitively bid, evaluated, and awarded in compliance with the county’s open competitive public procurement processes.”
A spokesperson for the registrar-recorder’s office added that no evidence was found of the surplus charges alleged by federal prosecutors and that the price of machines always remained the same. No federal prosecutors have contacted the department.
Smartmatic spokesperson Samira Saba accused the Department of Justice of filing the motion with misrepresentations that were “untethered from reality.”
In a statement, the company asserted: “Let us be clear: Smartmatic wins business because we’re the best at what we do. We operate ethically and abide by all laws always, both in Los Angeles County and every jurisdiction where we operate.”
As the federal corruption case against the Smartmatic employees gets underway, L.A. County’s Logan faces separate civil allegations that he benefited from a close relationship with company management. This included upscale dinners, a trip to Taiwan and the Maldives, as well as other outings, according to reported county emails and text messages.
Logan later stated in a civil case deposition that these were exempt from disclosure because he attended in a “personal capacity.”
The emails and depositions emerged in an unusual 1,000-page public records lawsuit filed this month by Fox News, whose representatives say they need county records to defend themselves against the multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit brought by Smartmatic.
Smartmatic gained widespread recognition in 2020 after Fox News falsely reported that the company, along with Dominion Voting Systems, helped rig the 2020 election against President Trump. This conspiracy was widely pushed by Trump surrogates both on-air and in legal filings that ultimately failed.
At the time, Dominion voting machines were used in about two dozen states, while Smartmatic was only used in L.A. County — it’s first business in North America.
Dominion filed a defamation suit against Fox which was settled for $787.5 million. Smartmatic filed a similar lawsuit in 2021 seeking $2.7 billion. Smartmatic also launched defamation lawsuits against some of its accusers. In addition to Fox News, the company sued Mike Lindell, Newsmax, One America News Network, Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani.
As part of its defense, Fox News lawyers have focused on the relationship between Logan and Smartmatic, arguing that the county is withholding crucial records. The network declined to elaborate on the allegations made in the lawsuit when contacted by the LA Times.
Logan said in a statement that the county is being used as a pawn in both the civil lawsuit and federal corruption case and said the “voluminous records” the county released “refute the salacious allegations.”
The federal criminal case against Smartmatic executives started during the Biden administration with charges filed in August 2024. The Trump administration paused most foreign bribery cases after he took office for a second term, but allowed the charges against Smartmatic executives to proceed.
Records released to Fox News by L.A. County, which the media company included as exhibits in the civil public records lawsuit, show no evidence of the voter fraud espoused on air by the network’s guests in 2020 that led to the whirlwind of conspiracy theories and the subsequent defamation case.
