 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Technology, Electronic voting |
| Founded | 11 April 2000 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom[1], multinational |
Key people | |
| Revenue | $250 million[2] (2014) |
Number of employees | 600[3] |
| Website | www |
Smartmatic (also referred as Smartmatic Corp. or Smartmatic International), or Smartmatic SGO Group, is a multinational company that builds and implements electronic voting systems. The company also produces smart cities solutions (including public safety and public transport), identity management systems for civil registration and authentication products for government applications.
Smartmatic was founded in 2000 by Antonio Mugica, Alfredo José Anzola, and Roger Piñate and gained attention quickly after it was chosen to replace voting machines in Venezuela ahead of Hugo Chávez's 2004 reelection. The company grew by acquiring the much larger Sequoia Voting Systems in 2006 (though its stake in Sequoia was later divested), and today runs voting systems in many countries across the world.
Smartmatic has faced controversy for some of its actions in the Philippines, and during and after the 2020 United States presidential election and subsequent attempts to overturn the results, Smartmatic was the subject of numerous accusations of fraud and conspiracy theories by Donald Trump and his supporters. Smartmatic launched defamation lawsuits against some of its accusers, most notably Fox News, Mike Lindell, Newsmax, One America News Network, Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani. Three current and former executives from Smartmatic have been charged in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for a scheme that includes bribery.[4]
- ^ "The Future of U.S. Voting May Be U.K. Technology"; Archived 26 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine. The Atlantic. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
- ^ Ahmed, Murad (24 November 2014). "Lord Mark Malloch-Brown to chair election technology group SGO". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 11 May 2017. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
- ^ Wallace, Arturo (2 August 2017). "De dónde surgió y qué hace Smartmatic, la empresa de votación electrónica que denunció la 'manipulación' de la elección de la Constituyente en Venezuela". BBC Mundo. Archived from the original on 8 August 2017. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
- ^ Cohen, Marshall (9 August 2024). "Smartmatic executives charged by Justice Department in alleged Philippines bribery scheme". CNN. Retrieved 11 August 2024.