Four men including the President of Smartmatic were indicted on Thursday in a federal grand jury for bribery and fraud related to the electronic voting system.
In a press release last year, the Department of Justice confirmed that between 2015 and 2018, Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, 49, a Venezuelan citizen and resident of Boca Raton, Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, a U.S. citizen and resident of Davie, Florida, funneled around $1 million in bribes to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, 60, the former Chairman of the Filipino Commission of Elections (COMELEC).
The DOJ reported:
A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned an indictment today charging three executives of an election voting machine and service provider company and a former Chairman of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) of the Republic of the Philippines for their roles in an alleged bribery and money laundering scheme to retain and obtain business related to the 2016 Philippine elections.
According to the indictment, between 2015 and 2018, Roger Alejandro Pinate Martinez, 49, a Venezuelan citizen and resident of Boca Raton, Florida, and Jorge Miguel Vasquez, 62, a U.S. citizen and resident of Davie, Florida, together with others, allegedly caused at least $1 million in bribes to be paid to Juan Andres Donato Bautista, 60, the former Chairman of COMELEC. These bribes were allegedly paid to obtain and retain business related to providing voting machines and election services for the 2016 Philippine elections and to secure payments on the contracts, including the release of value added tax payments.