Judge’s Ruling Sets Stage For Trial In Smartmatic’s Defamation Case Against Newsmax Over 2020 Election Rigging Claims
A Delaware judge said that a jury will have to decide whether Newsmax engaged in actual malice against Smartmatic as the conservative news outlet amplified claims made by allies of Donald Trump that the voting machine company helped rig the 2020 presidential election.
The ruling from Judge Eric M. Davis is just the latest in a series of lawsuits filed by Smartmatic and another election systems company, Dominion Voting Systems, over claims made by Newsmax, One America News Network and Fox News guests and personalities in the aftermath of the election.
Smartmatic sued Newsmax in November, 2021, claiming that as the network sought a larger audience, it published dozens of reports indicating that Smartmatic was in a “criminal conspiracy” to rig the results of the election, “and that its technology and software were used to switch votes from former President Trump to now President Biden.”
In his ruling, Davis wrote that “there remains a dispute as to whether Newsmax recklessly disregarded the truth. On one hand, Newsmax argues it was simply reporting matter on a public concern and it had no duty to conduct its own investigation. On the other hand, Smartmatic believes Newsmax reported the allegations knowing they were false.”
The judge added, “The jury must determine if Newsmax was doing what media organizations typically do—inform the public of newsworthy events—or did Newsmax purposely avoid the truth and defame Smartmatic.”
Davis also ruled that the “statements regarding Smartmatic software or voting machines altering the results of the Election are factually false. The reports and investigations conducted by multiple state and federal agencies since the Election universally come to the same result.”
Smartmatic did not provide any election machine software outside of Los Angeles during the cycle, Davis noted.
Among other things, the judge cited internal emails, including those from Newsmax host Bob Sellers and producer Jerry Burke.
“How long are we going to have to play along with election fraud?” Sellers wrote on Nov. 13, “So the election official, who did his job and is assuring Americans that their votes are valid, will get fired because Trump’s narrative is
