[96], The next day, district judge Carl J. Nichols denied motions by Lindell, Powell, and Giuliani to dismiss the lawsuits against them. [83] The suit against Powell had been filed on January 8, 2021, but those employed by Dominion were only able to serve her the summons on January 28, 2021. Those claims were debunked by Maricopa County officials even before Election Day: "Even if there is bleed through it won't impact counting because our upgraded ballots have off-centered columns and our new tabulators only read the ovals," the county elections department tweeted on Oct. 26, 2020, for example. Create Comparison. Rupert said he would look into the issue, and minutes later, he called back. President-elect Joe Biden officially secured the presidency after the Electoral College met to give him and Vice President-elect Harris 306 votes. In June, he wrote an op-ed asking Congress for more regulation, which would include requirements for paper backups of individual votes, mandatory post-election audits and more resources for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to speed improvements. Media. [32], DVS voting machines operate using a suite of proprietary software applications, including Election Management System, Adjudication Client, and Mobile Ballot Printing. Thank you for supporting our journalism. They include Burt, Chief Financial Officer Tom OBrien and the Omaha-based private equity firm McCarthy Group, which owns a controlling interest. On Nov. 7, 2020, the Associated Press, the New York Times, Fox News . The deposition was set to begin on December 5 and "will continue from day to day (Sundays and holidays excluded) until complete, unless otherwise agreed". [14][15], After questions about the reliability of the company's systems surfaced during the election, Edward Perez, an election technology expert at the Open Source Election Technology Institute stated, "Many of the claims being asserted about Dominion and questionable voting technology is misinformation at best and, in many cases, they're outright disinformation. Plaintiffs themselves characterize the statements at issue as 'wild accusations' and 'outlandish claims'. [125] Previously Fox's lawyers had stated that any efforts to depose the Murdochs and put them at the center of the case would just be a "fruitless fishing expedition". [107], On July 11, 2022, the court docket for the case showed that Dominion had issued a subpoena to former Attorney General William Barr. There are going to be people who have opinions from now until eternity about the security of the equipment, the bias of those companies who are producing the equipment, the bias of the election administrators who are conducting the election, Burt said in an interview. 488 Following. She went on to say that the continuing lies have resulted in continued threats of violence against the company. [74] Dominion itself was not party to the suit, but released a statement saying "Sidney Powell and many othersincluding some news organizationshave trampled on countless reputations as they pandered their ridiculous conspiracy theories. Georgia uses the Dominion voting machines and KnowInk poll books statewide systems that the state only deployed in every county for the first time this year after replacing its previous. Among them: claims that the use of Sharpie markers in Maricopa County, Arizona, had invalidated the votes cast by Trump supporters because the ink often bled through the ballots. Det skriver Hans Rustad her. Vote Smart provides free, unbiased, in-depth information about current officials, candidates, issues, legislation, and voting. (Fox attorneys previously fended off an unrelated defamation lawsuit against star Tucker Carlson filed by a woman who had an affair with Trump by arguing no one believes that what the Fox star says is literally true.). For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Wyden said he was concerned by the companys foreign parts supply and was working on legislation to limit it. That explains the sustained embrace of unsustainable claims, Dominion's legal team argues. She has kept a report on a theoretical voting machine flaw authored by a respected computer researchersecret since last summer, citing concerns that releasing the report would fuel conspiracy. Her attorney Howard Kleinhendler denied she had tried to evade service, noting that she travels a lot and "has had to take extra precautions concerning her security, which may have made serving her more difficult. Dominion filed a $1.3 billion defamation suit against MyPillow and CEO Mike Lindell in February. A new claim has now been made that Dominion Voting Systems, the technology firm that provided voting systems in multiple US jurisdictions in the November 2020 election, is owned by Joe Biden's nephew. [14], After Dominion filed the lawsuit against Powell, OANN removed all references to Dominion and Smartmatic from its website without issuing public retractions. Chris Wlaschin, head of systems security for ES&S, said at a Homeland Security cybersecurity summit in Washington in September that the companys machines are not prone to a remote attack over the internet. [25] In June 2010, Dominion acquired Sequoia Voting Systems. A developer and principle architect work on software. [6], The company was subjected to extensive attention following the 2020 election, in which then-president Donald Trump was defeated by Joe Biden, with Trump and various surrogates promoting conspiracy theories, which falsely alleged that Dominion was part of an international cabal that stole the election from Trump, and that it used its voting machines to transfer millions of votes that had been cast for Trump instead to Biden. Non-partisan and nonprofit since 1988. The letter to Carone asserted that, despite Carone presenting herself as a Dominion insider, she was "hired through a staffing agency for one day to clean glass on machines and complete other menial tasks". ", Fox's Jeanine Pirro is back in the hot seat in $1.6 billion election defamation case, anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum pushed McDaniel repeatedly, part of a lawsuit filed by the attorney and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Lin Wood, to have his mental fitness evaluated as it weighed a complaint seeking to strip him of his license to practice law. [119], On February 16, 2023, Dominion Voting Systems filed a motion for summary judgment against Fox News, with dozens of internal communications,[126] sent during the months after the 2020 presidential election, showing several prominent network hosts and senior executivesincluding chairman Murdoch and CEO Suzanne Scottdiscussing their knowledge that the election fraud allegations they were reporting were false. Judge Davis stated that Newsmax "knew the allegations were probably false" about Dominion's technology, and "there were enough signs indicating the statements were not true to infer Newsmax's intent to avoid the truth". [119] The New York Times noted that in most defamation cases settlements are reached before any depositions are taken. [17][18] During subsequent months, Dominion filed suits seeking $1.6 billion in damages from each of Fox News, Newsmax, OANN and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne,[19] while also suing Mike Lindell and his corporation, MyPillow. The claims about interference and fraud from the campaign's supporters range from Sharpies invalidating conservative voter's ballotsin Arizona to Hugo Chvez the deceased former president of Venezuela owning part of Dominion Voting Systems, whose machines are used in 28 states. Just off a bustling interstate near the border between Nebraska and Iowa, a 2,800-square-foot American flag flies over the squat office park that is home to Election Systems & Software LLC. The source of the nations voting machines has become an urgent issue because of real fears that hackers, whether foreign or domestic, might tamper with the mechanics of the voting system. Many were unraveled in real time during the 2020 election season often by Fox's own reporters. The ICE will also mark ballots for voters with disabilities using an attached accessibility device that enables all voters to cast votes with paper ballots on the same machine. [117] Accounts hold that the younger Murdoch did not pressure anyone to reverse the call, but "he did ask detailed questions about the process that Fox's election analysts had used after the call became so contentious. Allegations of voter fraud in Detroit. The journalist is asking all the right questions. They never showed any evidence, but that didn't stop. The host further acknowledged that Smartmatic is not owned by any foreign entity, nor is it connected to George Soros, as had been alleged. [1] The company's headquarters are in Toronto, Ontario, where it was founded, and Denver, Colorado. The image is exported to a laptop and then printed on blank paper to provide a ballot record. [70] In a deposition Powell admitted to Coomer's lawyers that she did not have "a lot of specific knowledge about what Mr. Coomer personally did" in the supposed election conspiracy. Because it is privately owned, ES&S is not legally obligated to reveal its ownership or any other details about its finances, although Burt did confirm that the company generated about $100 million in sales last year. Dominion Voting Systems filed a lawsuit in 2021 against Fox News, which has as its parent company the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp NWSA, claiming the news organization spread false information . Dominion's legal team is counting on a rich reservoir of material from their questioning of Fox journalists and executives under oath and from mining their emails, texts, and other communications. (He along with L. Lin Wood had worked alongside Powell challenging the election results of 2020 in what are sometimes referred to as the "Kraken" cases. [117] They reported that sources "expected Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, who own and control the Fox Corporation, to sit for depositions as soon as this month". [102] Nichols ruled Lindell's claims were groundless and frivolous, and partially granted Smartmatic's motion for sanctions and fees against Lindell and his legal team for filing the suit, with the amount to be decided later. In those documents, Fox's attorneys offer "omitted context" for the seemingly incendiary remarks by such hosts as Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, as well as their featured guests, including Trump and his former campaign attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Plaintiff's attorneys were ordered to pay $180,000 for the defendants' attorneys' fees, with the judge finding that the lawsuit was filed "in bad faith" and made frivolous arguments. In a letter to NBC News, ES&S said it takes great care with its foreign supply chain, including conducting risk assessments and making on-site visits to suppliers to make sure that components are trusted, tested and free of malware. It said that all of its facilities adhere to international standards, that it manufactures in compliance with all federal guidelines and that it follows cybersecurity best practices. The letter identified two passive investors, Nancy McCarthy and Kenneth Stinson, who own stakes of more than 5 percent in McCarthy Group. [2] Its name derives from the Dominion Elections Act. "Sometimes that context is helpful to them. There is no evidence that Terri McCullough, Pelosi's current chief of staff, holds an executive-level position at the company. [92] A Fox News motion to dismiss the suit was denied on December 16, 2021, by a Delaware Superior Court judge. USA TODAY, March 26, "Dominion Voting sues Fox for $1.6 billion over false 2020 election fraud claims". The statement was signed by various government and voting industry officials including the presidents of the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State. [46][47], Dominion's architecture was also widely used in the 2018 Ontario municipal elections on October 22, 2018, particularly for online voting. Likes. Causes of rejection include a blank ballot, an overvoted ballot, and unclear marks. During the tour, Burt said the overseas facilities are very secure. He said the final assembly of voting machines takes place in the U.S. Chinese manufacturers can be forced to cooperate with requests from Chinese intelligence officials to share any information about the technology and therefore pose a risk for U.S. companies, NBC News analyst Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of the FBI for counterintelligence, said. The voters rewarded him with nearly 11 million more votes in 2020-from the most diverse corners. Get these in your inbox: We're fact checking the news and sending it to your inbox. McCarthy Group did not respond to NBC News requests for comment. She ruled that there was evidence of actual malice which Coomer would need to prove in trial. Dominion provided the court with reports from various news outlets that Rupert Murdoch had "spoke with Trump and other senior Republicans shortly after the election and urged them to drop their election-fraud narrative and concede defeat". A Dominion spokesperson said in a statement provided to CBS News that the company "categorically denies any claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems.. [3] The company maintains headquarters in Toronto and in Denver, Colorado. His affidavit was part of a lawsuit filed by the attorney and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Lin Wood, who was subject of an effort by the Georgia state bar to have his mental fitness evaluated as it weighed a complaint seeking to strip him of his license to practice law. [58] Trump attorney Sidney Powell promoted the allegations on Lou Dobbs's Fox Business program two days after the election, and again two days later on Maria Bartiromo's program, claiming to have "evidence that that is exactly what happened". [3], Dominion produces electronic voting machines, which allow voters to cast their votes electronically as well as optical scanning devices used to tabulate paper ballots. He does not. Questions about who owns the major voting machine manufacturers have followed the industry for years. By Dennis Romero. [120], It was announced on October 3, 2022, that the Supreme Court of the United States had declined Mike Lindell's appeal against Judge Carl Nichols' ruling; allowing Dominion's case to proceed. "[117] Looking for connections to the Venezuelan dictator who died in 2013, lawyers for Fox in court filings have asked Dominion to turn over any internal communications going back over a decade that include any of the words "Hugo", "Chavez", "tampered", "backdoor", "stolen", or "Trump". But in response to questions this year from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, ES&S disclosed which investors own more than 5 percent of the company. ES&S said it conducts quality assurance tests on the machines. [41] New Brunswick used Dominion's 763tabulator machines in the 2014 provincial elections. The sworn deposition of an anonymous witness who said he was a former member of the Venezuelan presidential security team and accused Dominion of committing election fraud in the U.S. All of these allegations have been disproven. ICC - ImageCast Central. "And there really was no support for them other than a couple of crackpots.". It ran on the shows hosted by Dobbs, Bartiromo and Pirro. "[108], In early July 2022, two lawyers from U.K.-based Kennedys Law LLP, Michael J. Tricarico and Marc Casarino joined Powell's legal team of Lawrence J. Joseph and J. Howard Kleinhendler in the defamation cases involving Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. [26], In 2018, Dominion was acquired by its management and Staple Street Capital, a private equity firm. Dominion products have been increasingly used in the United States in recent years. The secrecy of ES&S and its competitors has pushed politicians to seek information on security, oversight, finances and ownership. "They put themselves in a real pickle when they start to provide the surrounding context," Wienner says. Senator Steve Daines and five Republican state attorney generals (including Ken Paxton and Patrick Morrisey), DirecTV dropped One America News (OAN) from its channel lineup on April 5, 2022. [7][9] On November 12, 2020, CISA released a statement that confirmed "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised". Dominion Voting's Tweets. (Photo by Calla Kessler, Special to The . Each adjudicated ballot is marked with the username of the poll worker who made the change. But ES&S still faces questions about the companys supply chain and the identities of its investors, although it has said it is entirely owned by Americans. Tweets. The lawsuit alleges Fox News personalities including Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro, Sean . [20][21], Dominion Voting Systems Corporation was founded in 2002 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by John Poulos and James Hoover. She has served for over seventeen years in a variety of roles in Speaker Pelosi's offices in Washington, DC & San Francisco. [127], Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, problems with the reporting of tabulator counts, Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, National Association of State Election Directors, National Association of Secretaries of State, Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy, Smartmatic 2020 presidential election and defamation lawsuits, Fox News controversies False claims about the 2020 election. ES&S said McCarthy Groups bylaws prevented it from revealing other individual investors, but it affirmed that they are all U.S. citizens or trusts or corporations owned by Americans. [110] By July 13, 2022, Kleinhendler withdrew from the team. More: Fact check: False claim that electronic voting software companies Dominion and Smartmatic have closed. [98] Angelo Carusone of Media Matters for America told reporters that as 90% of OAN's revenue came from DirecTV that the company will not survive through Dominion's lawsuit against it, but will "be wiped out from the litigation costs. The Voter's Self Defense System - Vote Smart And he says Fox well may succeed in convincing the court to knock out some of the claimed instances of defamatory statements to be put in front of the jury. [17][18], In court documents, Dominion's legal team, out of "professional courtesy", stated that they would not oppose the request of Powell's legal team for more time to prepare, but noted that she had "evaded service of process for weeks", forcing them to "incur unnecessary expenses" to serve her with the lawsuit. The network's lawyers write, as they have before, that Fox was merely relaying inherently newsworthy claims by Trump and his surrogates. )[111][112][113][114], Media outlets such as the Guardian mentioned the lawsuit against Fox News in late July, when excerpts of Jared Kushner's book Breaking History were released. "They didn't just quote Trump. Dominion Voting Systems, which makes software and hardware for election officials to use around the country, is at the center of baseless claims that say "glitches" from its machines caused . . Allegations of voter fraud in Detroit. [57], In a related hoax, Dennis Montgomery, a software designer with a history of making dubious claims,[58] asserted that a government supercomputer program was used to switch votes from Trump to Biden on voting machines. [119], Dominion's lawyer, Mary Kathryn Sammons, told a Federal court on September 16, 2022, that Mike Lindell was still repeating the same baseless claims against the company: "The problem here is the lawsuit is based on the public figures making very public lies about Dominion. Company profile page for Dominion Voting Systems Corp including stock price, company news, press releases, executives, board members, and contact information Dominion further stated its intentions were to stop Lindell from using MyPillow to profit off of election conspiracy theories at the expense of Dominion. "[83], On February 16, 2021, Dominion announced that they would be filing a lawsuit against Lindell in response to OANN airing a program by Lindell titled Absolute Proof that repeated his false claims about the 2020 election. [45], In June 2018, Elections Ontario used Dominion's tabulator machines for the provincial election and deployed them at 50percent of polling stations. ', https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dominion_Voting_Systems&oldid=1142830011, This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 16:15. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. [70][75], On April 5, 2022, Coomer filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court against MYPillow CEO Mike Lindell, along with his company, and his media platform Frankspeech for spreading the unsupported Oltmann claims and having "intentionally and persistently defamed Coomer as a 'traitor'". [95] The lawsuit against OANN also named its anchors Chanel Rion and Christina Bobb. '"[115][116], The New York Times, on August 13, 2022, noted that there had been no movement towards settlement from either Dominion or Fox, and both "are deep into document discovery, combing through years of each other's emails and text messages, and taking depositions". In preparing for this November's election, the . Elections New Brunswick officially suspended the results reporting count with 17 ridings still undeclared. [2] It develops software in offices in the United States, Canada, and Serbia. "I dialed Rupert Murdoch and asked why Fox News had made the Arizona call before hundreds of thousands of votes were tallied. "[117] While Fox continues to claim that any statements made on air were covered by the First Amendment, and as such can not be considered defamation, the Times reported that "Fox has also been searching for evidence that could, in effect, prove the Dominion conspiracy theories weren't really conspiracy theories. ", "If anything, because they were so outlandish, they immediately attracted widespread attention and were debunked," Perez says. Fox and Dominion did not comment for this story. Resolved: Release in which this issue/RFE has been resolved. "Noforeign national directly or indirectly owns or controls the company," the statement reads. It doesn't make it better. Dominion Voting was discovered to not only have been used in Antrim County but in more than 40 additional counties in the state of Michigan. Of the approximately 115 statements on Fox by its hosts and guests that Dominion contends are defamatory, Fox News wrote in its filing, "there is not a single statement for which Dominion can prove every element of its claim for defamation.". IE 11 is not supported. Amid claims by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that this year's election might be "rigged," some people took this as concrete evidence that Soros, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, would. Dominion Voting. They have not had anybody hold them accountable even on the most basic matters.. Georgia: In 2019, a $107 million ten-year contract with Dominion procured by the Secretary of State covers 30,000 touch screen voting machines and the installation of a "verified paper ballot". [15] The suit against Giuliani is based on more than fifty statements by Giuliani made on his podcast, at legislative hearings, on Twitter, and in conservative media, and alleges that Giuliani made false statements about the company in an attempt to earn money from legal fees and through his podcast. Dozens of Republican officials, including some who were elected in the same processthat they falsely claim had widespread fraud, have backed the Trump campaign's unsuccessful attempts to overturn the results of the election. "[101] The Daily Beast reported that Lindell had hired veteran First Amendment lawyer Nathan Lewin, and was also receiving informal advice from Alan Dershowitz, who stated "My role is to come up with ideas as they pertain to the First Amendment. Dominion was started by him," he adds. Outside of Staple Street Capital and the Dominion's CEO, noinvestor owns more than a 5% stake of the company. Election technology company Dominion sues Giuliani for $1.3 billion over 'Big Lie' about election fraud. Every single thing." New questions about voting machines as 2020 election approaches, a letter asking them to disclose a range of such information, invested in a Maryland election services firm. USA TODAY, Jan. 23, "Dominion Voting Systems files $1.3B defamation suit against ex-Trump . [42] There were some problems with the reporting of tabulator counts after the election, and at 10:45p.m. The initial cost of the . Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. And the results of its government penetration tests, in which authorized hackers try to break in so vulnerabilities can be identified and fixed, have yet to be revealed. [4][5] Dominion voting machines have been used in countries around the world, primarily in Canada and the United States. Nearly half of all Americans who vote in the 2020 election will use one of its devices. Dominion has filed suits contesting various unfounded claims about its systems. [15] Ron Watkins, a leading proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory,[62][63] posted videos on Twitter in early December of a Dominion employee using one of the machines, falsely stating that the employee was pictured tampering with election results.