US election Venezuela Trump

Molly Butler / Media Matters | Trump photo: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons

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After years of right-wing media and election deniers pushing outrageous claim Venezuela stole the 2020 US election, the Trump administration is now probing for evidence

For over five years, right-wing figures have falsely alleged voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic were based in Venezuela or had ties to Venezuelan leaders

Written by Alex Kaplan & Reed McMaster

Research contributions from Zachary Pleat

Published

For over five years, right-wing media and election deniers have pushed long-winded conspiracy theories claiming that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen by the Venezuelan government via Smartmatic and Dominion voting machines. Figures on the right have falsely claimed that these companies were based in Venezuela, had ties to former Presidents Hugo Chávez or Nicolás Maduro, used software in their voting machines that could override security features and flip votes, and were even used to rig Venezuelan and U.S. elections.

Following the Trump administration's recent capture of Maduro and the FBI's raid of an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, election deniers are now openly declaring that the government will prove that their baseless election fraud claims about 2020 are correct.

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  • The Trump administration is probing 2020 election fraud claims, elating election deniers

    • The administration began a major push to investigate President Donald Trump's repeatedly debunked claims that he won the 2020 election, with Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard making herself a public face in the probe and being on-site for an FBI raid of a Fulton County, Georgia, election center. According to The Guardian, the warrant for the FBI's January 28 raid “sought all ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls.” ABC reported Gabbard arranged a phone call between Trump and the FBI agents conducting the raid. [CNN, 1/31/26; ABC News, 2/2/26; The Guardian, 1/28/26]
    • Election deniers cheered the Fulton County raid, saying it's “exactly what” they previously asked Trump to do. Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne claimed that the raid shows “they’ve crossed the Rubicon” and it was “exactly what we were asking him [Trump] to do” in 2020. Trump's former lawyer Sidney Powell, who has promoted baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, said she was “hopeful that means this administration is taking seriously the massive fraud that I believe occurred in the 2020 election.” Byrne — who has been a prominent fundraiser of election denial efforts — attended the December 2020 Oval Office meeting, alongside Powell and Michael Flynn, where Trump was urged to seize voting machines. [Media Matters, 2/5/26; The New York Times, 1/31/22; NPR, 10/19/23; The Washington Post, 12/6/21; The Guardian, 7/20/24]
    • Gabbard also led an investigation last spring that was reportedly related to “claims that Venezuela had hacked voting machines in Puerto Rico,” where a U.S. attorney has allegedly been in touch with figures who have prominently promoted unfounded claims Venezuela helped steal the 2020 election. The Guardian reported U.S. attorney for Puerto Rico Stephen Muldrow, “a staunch Republican and Trump supporter,” had been briefed on “the old voting conspiracy and the allegations that Venezuela helped rig elections worldwide” by former CIA officer Gary Berntsen and Venezuelan expatriate Martin Rodil. Byrne has hyped Muldrow’s involvement, saying it meant an investigation into these conspiracy theories is “about as clean and squeaky clean as you get.” [Reuters, 2/4/26; The Guardian, 11/21/25; LindellTV, The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson, 2/5/26]
    • After the Trump administration captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a January 3 raid and brought him to the United States to face trial, MAGA influencers suggested it was linked to the conspiracy theory about Venezuela's involvement in the 2020 election. Trump appeared to endorse the suggestion that the raid was retaliation for 2020, repeatedly amplifying references to the purported role Venezuela played on Truth Social. [CNN, 1/3/26; Media Matters, 1/5/26]

  • Voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic — common targets of 2020 election conspiracy theories — were not based in Venezuela, nor did they have ties to the country's leaders

    • Right-wing media used Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines to create a boogeyman for the 2020 election. For years, right-wing media figures falsely claimed Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines switched votes from Trump to Joe Biden and created election irregularities. [Media Matters, 11/2/21, 12/22/20, 9/6/24]
    • Smartmatic and Dominion have sued several right-wing outlets that promoted conspiracy theories tying the companies to the purported 2020 election theft, with some of the outlets paying out multimillion dollar settlements. Fox News, which currently faces a $2.7 billion lawsuit from Smartmatic, ultimately settled a similar suit from Dominion for a record $787.5 million in 2023; filings in the case show that Fox executives and stars privately acknowledged that the election had not been tainted by large-scale fraud, even as the network broadcast false claims tying Dominion to Venezuela and suggesting it had rigged the 2020 vote. [Business Insider, 4/18/23; Politico, 8/19/25; Media Matters, 1/21/21, 7/5/22, 3/2/23, 8/21/25]
    • Two Smartmatic founders are from Venezuela, but the company was founded in Florida and incorporated in the United States. A fact check from Reuters additionally reported that “Smartmatic confirms on its website that the company is not Venezuelan, adding, ‘Smartmatic has no ties to governments or political parties of any country.’” [Reuters, 12/14/20]
    • Smartmatic voting machines were only used in one county during the 2020 election. FactCheck.org explained: “Apart from the dubious support for this conspiracy theory, the company it’s targeting doesn’t do much work in the United States. Smartmatic says it provided voting equipment to only one U.S. county in the 2020 election. Los Angeles uses the company’s VSAP touchscreen machines, according to the California Secretary of State’s list of certified voting equipment used in each county.” The article further explained that Los Angeles’ 2020 election results were similar to its 2016 election results. [FactCheck.org, 11/25/20]
    • Dominion Voting Systems was founded in Toronto, Canada, and in recent years was based in Denver, Colorado. Dominion responded to false claims of Venezuelan ties in a lawsuit, stating: “Dominion was not created in or for Venezuela, has never been located there, and is not owned by Smartmatic or Venezuelans. Dominion has never provided machines or any of its software or technology to Venezuela, nor has it ever participated in any elections in Venezuela.” [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/10/25; US Dominion, Inc. v. Powell, 1/8/21]

  • Right-wing media figures and election deniers repeatedly pushed false claims that Dominion and Smartmatic were Venezuelan or tied to Chávez or Maduro

    • On Fox Business, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani acknowledged Dominion was a Canadian company before claiming it was “a Venezuelan company that has Chinese parts in it.” [Media Matters, 11/16/20]
    • On Fox News, Giuliani said that Smartmatic is “a Venezuelan company.” Giuliani further claimed that Smartmatic was “founded by Chávez,” and later claimed it’s “really being run by people that are close to Maduro and Chávez.” [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 11/15/20, 11/15/20]
    • On Fox Business, Sidney Powell argued Smartmatic “all Venezuelan and Cuban and essentially communist money.” Powell claimed, “This affidavit also explains it [Smartmatic] has been used to change election results all over the world. And it's all Venezuelan and Cuban and essentially communist money that's been doing this. It's a foreign-owned company.” [Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 11/16/20]
    • Newsmax contributor Dick Morris claimed, “The Dominion software is licensed from … Smartmatic, which is [a] Venezuelan-owned and -controlled company. So we’re dealing here with the most incredible kind of systemic fraud.” Morris added that “this is the exact same system they’re using in Georgia on January 5,” the date of a then-upcoming runoff election. [Newsmax, American Agenda, 12/15/20]
    • Election deniers Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo argued that despite Smartmatic being founded in America, it was started with “source code” owned by the Venezuelan government. They also stated Smartmatic was “winning contracts in election districts all across the United States and it's Venezuelan owned,” that Smartmatic “bought another company called Sequoia,” and “from Sequoia, they were forced because of the CFIUS investigation to sell it to Dominion.” The Guardian reported that Berntsen promoted “the old voting conspiracy and the allegations that Venezuela helped rig elections worldwide,” and “in September, Pezzullo published an e-book called Stolen Elections: the Takedown of Democracies Worldwide, which described the Venezuela conspiracy theories.” [The Guardian, 11/21/25; Going Rogue with Lara Logan, 11/21/25, 11/21/25]
    • Election denier Martin Rodil: “And then slowly but very steady, they were building a Smartmatic, then they purchased Sequoia in Colorado, and then they ended [up] controlling the software used by Dominion.” Rodil continued: “So you have two problems here. You have not just an election problem, but you have a counterintelligence problem where a country like Venezuela — which is completely ignored but it becomes some sort of proxy for China, for Russia, for Iran, for every enemy of the United States — was allowed to do everything they could inside the U.S.” According to The Guardian, Rodil promoted “the old voting conspiracy and the allegations that Venezuela helped rig elections worldwide” along with Berntsen. [Patriot Party News, 11/19/25; The Guardian, 11/21/25]
    • One America News host Lilia Fifield, citing The Gateway Pundit, claimed “Smartmatic is partially owned by the Maduro regime and George Soros.” The segment’s chyron claimed the “Soros-backed firm installed socialism in Venezuela.” [OAN, 11/17/20]
    • Mark Levin: “What in the hell are we doing with a company that had any ties with Venezuela’s government? ... This is Smartmatic with ties to the Hugo Chávez machine.” [Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, 11/16/20]

  • Right-wing media and election deniers alleged that Smartmatic software could override security features and flip votes

    • Rush Limbaugh claimed that Dominion and Smartmatic “both have the same purpose ... to rig elections, and they are used in conjunction with one another.” Limbaugh: “Dominion is the software company out of Venezuela. Smartmatic is a piece of software that does all of the conniving. And they’re both manufactured — the same outfit — and they both have the same purpose, is to rig elections, and they are used in conjunction with one another.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/17/20]
    • Fox host Maria Bartiromo repeated claims by Sidney Powell that Smartmatic software has “built-in functionality allowing the administrators to override security features.” She said, “Smartmatic election software was developed, Sidney Powell says, in Venezuela, with porous security and built-in functionality allowing the administrators to override security features.” [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 11/22/20]
    • On Fox Business, Powell also argued Smartmatic “had been used to change election results all over the world.” [Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 11/16/20]
    • Then-Fox host and current U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro called Trump lawyers’ claims that Dominion was started in Venezuela and Smartmatic software could flip votes “serious allegations.” She stated, “The president's lawyers alleging a company called Dominion, which they say started in Venezuela with Cuban money and with the assistance of Smartmatic software, a backdoor is capable of flipping votes.” Pirro added: “These are serious allegations, but the media has no interest in any of this. But you and I do, as we should.” [Fox News, Justice with Judge Jeanine, 11/21/20]

  • Right-wing media and election deniers repeated the suggestion that Chávez or Maduro were behind Smartmatic and Dominion efforts to rig Venezuelan and U.S. elections

    • Patrick Byrne argued Chávez directed the Venezuelan immigrants who founded Smartmatic to build a “system that can rig me an election.” During a 2023 interview, he stated Chávez “went to these three young guys and he told them to build a system that can rig me an election. They moved to Florida, to Boca, and they started a Delaware company called Smartmatic. And then Smartmatic rigged the election.” In 2024, Byrne also said that he “hacked the government of Venezuela” and has “stolen everything. And everything we’ve been asserting from November 4 [of 2020] is true.” He went on to say he had Dominion “source code” and the software is “Venezuelan junk, just as we’ve been telling you from a week after the election. And we have all the proof. We have everything.” [Rumble, The Courtenay Turner Podcast, 5/19/23; Media Matters, 7/29/24]
    • Discussing Smartmatic in a stream on Locals, Byrne read from an affidavit about the 2020 election claiming that “it took the voting system approximately two hours — the operator — two hours to make the adjustments to the vote for Radonski to Maduro” in Venezuela’s 2013 election. Byrne read, “Then when they turned the Internet back on and the online reporting was up and running, they checked each screen state by state. And then at that moment, the Smartmatic system changed the votes from Radonski to Maduro. By the time the system operator finished, they had achieved a convincing but narrow victory of 200,000 votes for Maduro.” He added, “Is any of this sounding familiar?” [Locals, 12/7/24]
    • Then-Newsmax correspondent Emerald Robinson claimed that Smartmatic software was used to “fix elections in Venezuela” for Hugo Chávez. The Washington Post reported that as part of its lawsuit, “Smartmatic has pointed to a Nov. 17, 2020, remark by Newsmax correspondent Emerald Robinson, who falsely asserted that ‘Smartmatic software is what was used by Hugo Chávez and his successors to fix elections in Venezuela,’ and a comment made by Newsmax host Chris Salcedo, who said that Smartmatic software comes with a ‘directive’ on ‘how you change the results’ of an election.” [The Washington Post, 9/20/24]
    • On Mike Lindell's streaming channel, Robinson talked up how a “team of wonderful American patriots” — naming “Patrick Byrne and Gary Berntsen” — had proof of the Venezuelan regime rigging U.S. elections. She stated, “This team had already recruited more than a dozen people, whistleblowers, who knew exactly how the rig system was built in Venezuela because they were former engineers from Venezuela who had worked for Smartmatic, and for Nicolás Maduro, and before that Hugo Chávez, who commissioned the building of this software so he could steal his referendum in 2004 to corruptly remain in power. Now, I've spoken to some of these whistleblowers myself. I've asked them about their information, their evidence, their work experience, the data, exactly how they steal it.” [LindellTV, The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson, 12/1/25]
    • Following Trump's capture of Maduro, Infowars host Alex Jones argued it was about stopping Smartmatic from “stealing our elections.” He claimed, “So out of survival, out of existential threat, I understand why Trump went into Venezuela. The total election fraud — Smartmatic is in the five big voting machine companies. It's been certified, confirmed, stealing our elections. They steal elections in 100-plus other countries. They're a globalist command base with the CIA, the EU, NATO, the Chicoms, and the whole U.S. deep state has really been at the top of the pyramid in Venezuela. Trump's ending all that. And so the U.S. was already, through the deep state, in control of Venezuela. That's the big secret.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/5/26]
    • Then-Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, citing “a whistleblower’s stunning affidavit,” claimed that “Smartmatic’s technology was used to rig elections in Venezuela.” [Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 11/19/20]
    • Powell told Fox Business that an independent investigation showed Dominion voting machines were “created for the benefit of Venezuela.” She stated, “We've known from early on in our independent investigation that the entire system was created for the benefit of Venezuela and Hugo Chávez to rig elections to make sure he continued winning. And then it was passed on to Mr. Maduro to do the same. And we know it was exported to other countries by virtue of some of the Dominion executives that proceeded to go about and essentially sell elections to the highest bidder.” [Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 12/10/20]
    • On Dobbs’ Fox Business show, Rudy Giuliani insisted that Smartmatic was founded by Chávez for “the specific purpose of fixing elections.” He stated that Smartmatic is “a company that was founded in 2005 in Venezuela for the specific purpose of fixing elections. That’s their expertise.” In the same show, he claimed, Smartmatic “was founded by Chávez” and was now being used “to call votes in America because their specialty in Venezuela is cheating.” [Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 11/18/20, 11/18/20]