Baseless Conspiracy Theory Targets Another Election Technology Company

Peddlers of this conspiracy have made it seem more plausible by tying it to another, similar theory aimed at an election technology company that has a bigger presence in the U.S. That company is Dominion Voting Systems, which has about 30% of the U.S. voting machine market, according to ProPublica.After the Nov. 3 election, Dominion also was baselessly accused of vote switching, but we’ve already debunked that claim.

One example of this combined conspiracy theory came from Powell and was amplified by Dobbs.

On Nov. 19 Powell claimed on Dobbs’ Fox Business show, “The fact is, the Dominion machines run the Softmatic software.” That’s false. Regardless of the facts, Dobbs’ show shared a clip of that interview on its social mediachannels, which have garnered tens of thousands of views.

Both companies have issued statements denying that kind of agreement. Dominion said, “Dominion does not use Smartmatic software.” Smartmatic said, “Smartmatic has never provided Dominion Voting Systems with any software, hardware or other technology. The two companies are competitors in the marketplace.”

Separately, and more importantly, regardless of the type of software that might be used in any voting system, the agencies and organizations that oversee U.S. elections said in a joint statement, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

That said, there is enough of a history between the two companies for conspiracy theorists to sew together a story. So we’ll explain that history here.

The perception that Smartmatic and Dominion are connected comes largely from their separate dealings with a third company, Sequoia Voting Systems.

As we said, Smartmatic’s 2005 purchase of Sequoia caused some concern in the U.S., as described in Maloney’s 2006 letter. In light of those concerns, Smartmatic sold Sequoia in 2007 to a holding company called SVS, which was made up of Sequoia’s existing leadership.

Sequoia continued using some of Smartmatic’s intellectual property in its voting machines, according to a lawsuit between Smartmatic and SVS over another issue. The 2008 court opinion that revealed the IP issue didn’t explain what kind of IP, specifically, Sequoia was using or whether or to what extent it was related to software.

In 2010, Dominion purchased all of Sequoia’s assets, including its “inventory and all intellectual property including software, firmware and hardware, for Sequoia’s precinct and central count optical scan and DRE voting solutions,” according to a press release Dominion issued at the time.

Dominion didn’t respond to our request for comment, so we don’t know whether Dominion used the IP or software that it purchased in that deal or, if it did, in what way. But, it’s worth noting that this happened 10 years ago and any software that was purchased in the deal is likely outdated.

Another factor contributing to the perception that the companies are connected is a 2009 licensing agreement that allowed Smartmatic to use Dominion’s technology related to “precinct count optical scan” machines in markets outside of the U.S. and Canada. The issue was made public in a lawsuit that followed a disagreement between the companies about which one could sell the technology to Puerto Rico.

But that’s not proof of any kind of secret software sharing that would have an effect during this year’s U.S. election, and it certainly doesn’t prove anything about election fraud.

In fact, the joint statement from those who oversee U.S. elections said that “[t]he November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”