Fox News on Friday began to debunk bogus claims about election software company Smartmatic that proponents of President Trump and his unproven claims of election fraud have been pushing on its programs.
Days after lawyers for Smartmatic threatened litigation, Fox News Channel and its sister network Fox Business have started airing a segment that effectively corrects numerous false allegations it previously aired maligning the software maker.
Longtime anchor Lou Dobbs played the segment on his Fox Business Network program Friday night, and it is expected to run over the weekend on Fox News Channel programs airing Saturday and Sunday.
“There are lots of opinions about the integrity of the election, the irregularities of mail-in voting, of election voting machines and voting software,” Mr. Dobbs said as he introduced the segment.
Viewers of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” were then showed a video of Eddie Perez, an expert for the independent Open Source Election Technology Institute, being asked to address several claims about Smartmatic.
“I have not seen any evidence that Smartmatic’s software was used to delete, change, alter anything related to vote tabulation,” Mr. Perez stated near the start of the segment.
Mr. Perez then proceeded to debunk various other claims about Smartmatic that have been made in recent weeks on several Fox programs, including “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” among others.
Smartmatic has clearly denied having any relationship with Dominion Voting Systems, another company that makes election equipment, and said its software was used in just county last month, Mr. Perez noted.
“I am not aware of any evidence that Smartmatic is sending U.S. votes to be tabulated in foreign countries, Mr. Perez added, among other claims he addressed.
“Irrespective of which voting technology vendor we’re talking about, in the United States the ballots that are cast in the United States are tabulated in the United States,” he said.
The segment was immediately followed by a commercial. Mediaite reported it will be televised again Saturday and Sunday on the Fox News Channel programs hosted by Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo, respectively.
Mr. Perez said in a social media post later Friday he was “pleased for the opportunity to state the facts” on Fox News.
“We may have criticisms of vendors, but wild allegations unsupported by facts are corrosive to democracy, unity, and national security,” Mr. Perez posted on Twitter.
Conspiracy theorists have concocted various claims about Smartmatic, Dominion and other scapegoats to explain Mr. Trump recently losing his race for reelection to Democratic rival Joseph R. Biden.
Indeed, lawyers for Smartmatic issued a letter to Fox News last week demanding “a full and complete retraction of all its false and defamatory statements” about the company aired on its programs.
The letter included a list of dozens of allegedly false and defamatory claims about Smartmatic aired on “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” “Justice with Judge Jeanine” and “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”
“This letter serves as notice of potential legal claims against Fox News, its reporters, anchors, producers, and on-air guests by my client,” J. Erik Connolly wrote on behalf of Smarmatic on Dec. 10.
“The damage your disinformation campaign has done, and will do, to Smartmatic’s revenue and business valuation will be measured in the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars,” he added.
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