Smartmatic

Antonio Múgica Rivero, Antonio Múgica Sesma (Father), Roger Piñate and Alfredo Anzola incorporate Smartmatic Corp. and its sister company Bizta Corp. in the state of Delaware

In 2003, after receiving a significant investment from the Fondo de Crédito Urbano (FONCREI) and appointing its representative as director of the company, they received a contract to automate the Venezuelan elections with DRE voting machines.

After the multiple failures presented in the Cook County, Illinois primary elections where Senator Barack Obama exercised his right to vote on a Smartmatic machine, an investigation against him began due to the company’s ties with the government of Hugo Chavez.

Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney requests a CFIUS investigation because of concerns that a foreign company linked to the Venezuelan government has purchased a voting company in the United States.

In 2005 and after an excellent profit margin, they acquired their first international expansion company Sequoia Voting Systems in the United States of America.

This transaction, which was made possible by the British company De La Rue, allowed the acquisition of its assets for a modest price of US$ 16,000,000.

This expansion allowed Smartmatic to enter the American market and deploy its technology and services in 307 counties distributed in 16 states.

A great success where new products were created and solutions developed in Venezuela were integrated after the great success of the Venezuelan elections, according to the Carter Center.

In December 2006, Smartmatic Corp. reached an agreement with CFIUS and decided to sell its stake in its U.S. subsidiary Sequoia.

For this procedure, as stated in Jack Blaine’s affidavit, Smartmatic and its lawyers encouraged Jack Blaine to form an SVS Holding to be assigned the assets of Sequoia Voting Systems for nothing.

State of California orders study of Smartmatic-Sequoia source code

Additionally the County of California requests an investigation of the Smartmatic-Sequoia source code and a group of experts from the best universities in the United States, issues a report describing all the vulnerabilities of the system ranging from the encryption and security systems, to the integrity of the votes.

The conclusions of the report concluded in “significant security weaknesses throughout the Sequoia system” with the decertification of Smartmatic-Sequoia’s source code and the contracting of new electoral systems for the county.

The $2,000,000 guarantee would be enforced against SVS Holding and not Sequoia Voting Systems, an arrangement that does not benefit Smartmatic but which they offered to their former president Jack Blaine.

In 2007, during an electronic voting demonstration in Bogota – Colombia, Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems start a negotiation process to use their ImageCast Precinct (ICP) devices in the municipal elections in the Philippines in the Mindanao Region.

Smartmatic and Dominion sign licensing agreements for the use of their technologies without knowing that in a few years Dominion would be the owner of Smartmatic’s technology.

In 2008 the elections were held and a direct relationship began to automate the Philippine electoral system together.

Smartmatic and Dominion sign licensing agreements for the use of their technologies without knowing that in a few years Dominion would be the owner of Smartmatic’s technology.

In 2008 the elections were held and a direct relationship began to automate the Philippine electoral system together.

For the 2010 presidential elections, after multiple disagreements in the congress due to the constant failures of the equipment in the 2008 elections, Smartmatic and Dominion prepared 78,000 Precint Count Optical Scan (PCOS), for which the biggest failure in an electoral process occurred when the Flash Card of each voting equipment containing the electoral registration data failed during the process of revision and installation of the electoral centers.

As a result, Smartmatic, without the support of Dominion Voting, as denounced by the representatives of political parties, candidates and magistrates of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC).
Smartmatic reconfigured the devices and this action culminated in an interpellation by the Congress of the Philippines for a possible electoral fraud in the country.

In 2013, after receiving the approval despite multiple complaints, COMELEC delivers a new contract for the mid-term elections.

Smartmatic does not deliver the source code of the Precint Count Optical Scan (PCOS), Dominion Voting Systems in an internal fight with Smartmatic indicates that the licensing is expired and will not deliver the code for its revision violating the electoral law of the country.

Days before the election they allowed the review only one day to comply with the election protocol, but the representatives of political parties and civil organizations filed the respective complaints.

After these actions by Dominion in 2010 and 2013, Smartmatic denounces Dominion for interference in its business in Mongolia and Puerto Rico, and further states in its press release that it will contest the sale of its former subsidiary Sequoia Voting Systems of which Dominion owns all intellectual property for non-payment for the use of its legacy technology.

On August 17, 2017, Patricia Bautista wife of former president Andres Bautista denounces in a divorce proceeding that her husband has a somewhat unexplained fortune and an investigation process begins into the origin of the funds.

The prosecutor’s office in Miami begins investigations on Smartmatic executives filing the first international charges of bribery and corruption.

Smartmatic suffers a series of denunciations during the 2020 elections, due to its links with the Venezuelan government and the denunciations of a possible electoral fraud presented in the United States, which causes it to denounce a series of political and media personalities.

In the year 2024, the Miami prosecutor’s office files charges against 3 executives of Smartmatic and the former president of COMELEC in 2016, Andres Bautista for Bribery and Money Laundering.