On Monday, digital voting system firm Smartmatic demanded three conservative media shops to retract claims that its machines skewed votes in favor of President-elect Joe Biden in November’s US presidential election.
Smartmatic issued retraction demand letters to Fox Information, Newsmax, and One America Information Community, in keeping with a press launch printed by the Florida-based firm Monday. Within the letters, Smartmatic identifies a number of “factually inaccurate statements” made by the three conservative shops all through the 2020 presidential election cycle. These calls for are sometimes a precursor to a defamation lawsuit, though it’s unclear whether or not Smartmatic will pursue litigation.
“They haven’t any proof to assist their assaults on Smartmatic as a result of there isn’t any proof. This marketing campaign was designed to defame Smartmatic and undermine legitimately performed elections,” Antonio Mugica, Smartmatic CEO, mentioned in a press release Monday. “This marketing campaign is an assault on election methods and election staff in an effort to depress confidence in future elections and probably counter the need of the voters, not simply right here, however in democracies world wide.”
Over the previous couple of weeks, Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Techniques have been focused by conspiracy theorists who allege that the businesses manipulated votes in favor of Biden. Conspiracy theorists have falsely alleged that the voting firms have ties to antifa and Venezuela.
These conspiracy theories have traveled from the web to state legislatures. Final week, Dominion Voting Techniques known as the allegations “defamatory,” saying firm representatives can be made out there to testify before the Michigan State Senate this week. Representatives had beforehand threatened to subpoena the voting firm to testify on account of these false election claims.
Final month, the Division of Homeland Safety’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Company (CISA) put out a statement confirming that the November third election was the “most safe in American historical past” and “there isn’t any proof that any voting system deleted or misplaced votes, modified votes, or was in any approach compromised.”
President Donald Trump has made baseless claims of voting fraud over the previous couple of weeks. Shortly after CISA put out its assertion debunking election fraud final month, Trump fired CISA director Chris Krebs. Final week, Krebs filed defamation suits towards the Trump marketing campaign and Newsmax.
