Voting Machine Company Smartmatic and OANN Settle Defamation Suit

Voting machine company Smartmatic has settled its defamation lawsuit against One America News Network out of court, according to a court filing Tuesday.

Details of the settlement were not disclosed in the filing, but Herring Networks, OANN’s parent company, and Smartmatic each agreed to pay their own legal fees and expenses, according to the court filing. Lawyers for the parties did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Smartmatic, a voting machine company used only by Los Angeles County in the 2020 election, filed a series of lawsuits in 2021, alleging it was defamed by conservative media networks, personalities and allies of former President Donald Trump.

Herring Networks also faces a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, a popular voting machine company that made headlines for securing a massive $787.5 million settlement last year from Fox News in a defamation claim. Dominion’s case against Fox News dragged reams of evidence and testimony into the public sphere, revealing that Trump’s media allies did not believe the notably dubious evidence behind the president’s stolen election claims.

At least eight other cases of defamation of voting machine companies are also working their way through the court system this year.

Smartmatic’s lawsuit against Newsmax is scheduled to go to trial in September, while the trial in the voting machine company’s case against MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, which could have begun as early as this month, was recently rescheduled for January. The company’s lawsuit against Fox News in New York remains open, as the network also seeks counterclaims against Smartmatic.

Dominion’s case against Newsmax has been delayed by discovery fights and is not expected to go to trial until next year. The voting machine company’s lawsuits against prominent election deniers Lindell, former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne continue to work through the discovery process in federal court in Washington, D.C., along with the OANN process.