A brand of vote-counting machines (VCM) used around the world.
Smartmatic has been the provider of the vote counting machines (VCMs) in the Philippines’ automated elections since 2010.
Almost a thousand VCMs encountered glitches during the May 2019 midterm elections, the country’s fourth automated elections.
Aside from malfunctioning VCMs and SD cards, the recently concluded elections were marred by a seven-hour delay in the release of election results to the transparency server, which triggered concerns about the integrity of the poll results.
SOURCES:
archived news.abs-cbn.com/nation/05/20/10/teddy-boy-blows-top-smartmatic-official
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06CARACAS2063_a.html
https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/81/819105_phl-philippines-asia-pacific-.html
BACKGROUND OF SMARTMATIC USE IN THE PHILIPPINES
The Commission on Elections in the Philippines has used Smartmatic VCMs, previously known as precinct count optical-scan machines, since the first automated elections in 2010.
Despite the controversies surrounding the Smartmatic system, the poll body, more known in the Philippines as COMELEC, went on to buy 97,000 VCMs that were used in the 2016 elections.
COMELEC chairman Andy Bautista was accused of accepting a “referral fee” from Smartmatic
Smartmatic was founded in 1997 by Venezuelan engineers in Caracas. The company’s first known large-scale implementation of its technology was for the automation of electoral processes in Venezuela in 2004.
Just before the 2010 elections in the Philippines, Filipino-Americans called on U.S. President Barack Obama to investigate the background of Smartmatic due to its links to the Venezuelan government.
At a fraud inquiry on May 20, 2010, Heider Garcia of Smartmatic was questioned on the transparency and what he called “unforeseen” occurrences during the election process, with Philippine official Teodoro Locsin Jr. – an automated poll advocate – sharply rebuking Garcia. (source)
In 2016, a Smartmatic emgineer facing criminal charges in connection with the May 9 elections “escaped” from the Philippines and returned to his home country of Panama. The employee, identified as Mauricio Herrera, was alleged to have been involved in the unauthorized alteration of the script of the transparency server at the height of the transmission of votes just hours after voting closed.
The other respondents in the case included. Smartmatic personnel Marlon Garcia, a Venezuelan national and head of the technical support team; Elie Moreno, an Israeli national and project director; and Neil Banigued, member of the technical support team; and Comelec IT experts led by Rouie Peñalba, Nelson Herrera and Frances Mae Gonzalez.
The respondents were charged for violation of Section 4(a) of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 or Republic Act 10175, which prohibits “intentionally altering computer data, without right and altering and interfering with the functioning of a computer and computer network by inputting, deleting and altering computer data and program, without right or authority.”
It was pointed out that shortly after the unauthorized alteration of the script of the transparency server, the lead of Marcos over his closest rival started to taper at a uniform rate, which experts had said was statistically almost close to impossible.
US EMBASSY CABLE TEXT FROM WIKILEAKS
The Venezuelan-owned Smartmatic Corporation is a riddle, both in ownership and operation, complicated by the fact that its machines have overseen several landslide (and contested) victories by President Hugo Chavez and his supporters. The electronic voting company went from a small technology startup to a market player in just a few years, catapulted by its participation in the August 2004 recall referendum.
Smartmatic has claimed to be of US origin, but its true owners – probably elite Venezuelans of several political strains – remain hidden behind a web of holding companies in the Netherlands and Barbados.
The Smartmatic machines used in Venezuela are widely suspected of, though never proven conclusively to be, susceptible to fraud. The company is thought to be backing out of Venezuelan electoral events, focusing now on other parts of world, including the United States via its subsidiary, Sequoia.
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