Newsmax Takes Another Shot At Smartmatic (Which Is Suing Newsmax)

In September, Newsmax took a shot at voting tech firm Smartmatic over allegedly being implicated in a bribery allegation in the Philippines — but burying the fact that Smartmatic is suing it over false and misleading claims of election fraud it promoted after the 2020 election and insisting that “Newsmax has denied the defamation allegations of Smartmatic, claiming its lawsuit is an attack on a free press and Newsmax’s right to report on what major officials and other public officials are stating publicly.” It followed up with a related piece in a Nov. 29 article by Sandy Fitzgerald:

The Philippines’ Commission on Elections (COMELEC) moved Wednesday to ban Smartmatic PH, a voting technology company, after the U.S. Justice Department filed criminal charges against a former COMELEC official alleging that he was bribed by Smartmatic in exchange for winning contracts in the Philippines.

Smartmatic is suing numerous media outlets and individuals for defamation related to the 2020 United States presidential election claiming that media coverage of it harmed its reputation.

In its action, COMELEC said Smartmatic had been “disqualified and disallowed” after the Justice Department alleged that it had bribed Andres Bautista, the former COMELEC chairman, and other Filipino officials $4 million in exchange for obtaining a contract for election machines, according to a report in CNN Philippines.

LIke Mack, Fitzgerald play the Venezuela card to smear the company: “Smartmatic served as Venezuela’s election vendor for over a decade, and has faced international controversy since 2004 when it began handling national elections while Venezuelan strongmen Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro were in power.” And like Mack, she failed to mention that Smartmatic left Venezuela in 2018 after the country’s election officials were caught by Smartmatic manipulating vote totals in a 2017 election.

Fitzgerald waited until the 21st paragraph of her article to disclose that “Smartmatic has filed defamation lawsuits against Fox News, Newsmax, OAN” and others, “all of whom have denied wrongdoing.” She repeated the corporate “attack on a free press” defense and that it had a “right to report on what major officials and other public officials and their representatives are stating publicly.” She did conclude, though, by noting that “retired Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is being deposed in Los Angeles this week in Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against the company and its coverage of vote-rigging claims made by Trump and others from the 2020 presidential election.”