Dominion Voting Systems is a private, American company based in Denver, Colorado. As a leading supplier of election-related technology and equipment, it serves more than 40% of U.S. voters in 27 states and suddenly found itself in the headlines as bizarre conspiracy theories began to flourish in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
Once Trump lost, Dominion became the target of baseless allegations of fraud—charges that it has repeatedly repudiated and challenged in court ever since. In 2023, Fox News paid $787 million to Dominion to settle the defamation lawsuit brought against it, and cases are still pending against other right-wing news outlets such as Newsmax and One America News Network.
“Lies and misinformation have severely damaged our company and diminished the credibility of U.S. elections, subjecting hardworking public officials and Dominion employees to harassment and death threats,” the company acknowledges on its website, where it publicly tracks the many defamation lawsuits it has been forced to file in its efforts “to right these wrongs through our judicial system.” In addition to suing news outlets, the company has cases pending against Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell as well as conspiracy theorist businessmen Patrick Byrne and Mike Lindell.
Since its founding in 2003, Dominion has grown and prospered by ensuring the security of elections using both voluntary and mandatory testing on its systems as part of federal and state certification processes through the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Since the 2020 election, the federal government has conducted multiple investigations and repeatedly confirmed that no vote flipping, voting machine manipulation, or foreign government interference took place in that election.
Literally thousands of election audits and recounts in battleground states have confirmed both the accuracy and reliability of results and the integrity of Dominion’s systems. While these systems are capable of producing paper ballots or paper records, reading hand-marked paper ballots, and retaining election records, they are incapable of being programmed to “switch” or “weight” or invalidate votes.
Among the many other conspiracies and myths Dominion is still forced to debunk are that it is owned by billionaire and Democratic philanthropist George Soros or by BlackRock, one of the “Big Three” asset management firms in the U.S.; that foreign leaders are pulling the strings behind the scenes at the company; that it has financial ties to the Chinese government; that its machines are unable to read ballots marked with Sharpies or other felt-tipped pens; and that it kowtows to America’s political party leaders.
The Big Lie
- Dominion machines have been used in Maricopa County, Arizona for more than a decade and despite unfounded claims to the contrary, were proven to have accurately counted votes in the 2020 presidential election. In fact, the county’s hand count audit revealed a 100% match with the tallies from Dominion machines. A second round of equipment audits by federally accredited, independent Voting System Test Labs showed the equipment passed all tests. Maricopa County Board Chair Clint Hickman issued a statement affirming “no evidence of fraud or misconduct” in the 2020 election. And in 2023, after devoting more than 10,000 hours of staff time to investigating alleged instances of voting irregularities from “high-profile election deniers,” the Arizona Attorney General’s office reaffirmed the fairness and accuracy of the 2020 election and the Dominion machines used to tally results.
- In Georgia, baseless claims of problems with the performance of Dominion machines were thoroughly investigated by state elections officials and determined to be unfounded, as Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger repeatedly reiterated. After multiple audits and hand recounts, Georgia’s Voting System Implementation Manager Gabriel Sterling was able to “guarantee that this is the most secure election in the state of Georgia.” Speaking about the many false allegations the state was forced to investigate, he said, “The ridiculous things—claims—in some of these lawsuits are just that. They’re insanity. Fever dreams, made-up, internet cabal—however many words I can use to indicate how crazy some of these things are.”
- In Michigan, where Dominion machines were used in 66 of the 83 counties, state and local elections officials were inundated with outlandish allegations of election fraud immediately after the Nov. 3 election. Despite guarantees of no evidence of widespread fraud from election security experts, state election officials, and then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr, the conspiracy theories persist.
- Dominion machines in Antrim County, Michigan accurately counted votes, though the Michigan Secretary of State and County Clerks Association both confirmed that there was a reporting issue due to user error. A Michigan state Senate review of the 2020 election found no fraud, and recommended investigating people who were making money from false claims of election fraud in Antrim County. A lawsuit alleging voter fraud in the county based on a widely-debunked “forensic audit report” was dismissed in May 2021.
- Similar findings in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all confirmed that outrageous claims of election fraud and Dominion’s role in that in each state were totally unfounded. Still, misinformation about the integrity of the voting process in all of these states persists going into the 2024 presidential election.
- In April 2021, conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell published the third in a series of videos about multiple conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election, including purported cyberattacks involving Dominion voting machines and those of other companies. His Absolute Interference video claimed to provide “100% proof that our country was attacked by China, by communism coming in, this foreign interference to our elections, through the machines—Dominion, Smartmatic, ES&S, all of them.” The claims in this and Lindell’s other pieces of propaganda were quickly debunked.