FORMER Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Andres Bautista and three executives of the company that provided the automated vote-counting machines for the 2016 elections in the Philippines were indicted on Friday (Manila time) by a federal grand jury in Florida for bribery and money laundering.

The company that allegedly bribed Bautista was not named in US court records, but the description in an affidavit matched that of Smartmatic, which had won every contract to supply Comelec with voting machines since the first automated elections were held in 2010.