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Assaults on Dominion Voting Persist Regardless of Excessive-Profile Lawsuits

With a sequence of billion-dollar lawsuits, together with a $1.6 billion case towards Fox Information headed to trial this month, Dominion Voting Methods despatched a stark warning to anybody spreading falsehoods that the corporate’s expertise contributed to fraud within the 2020 election: Watch out together with your phrases, otherwise you may pay the worth.

Not everyone seems to be heeding the warning.

“Dominion, why don’t you present us what’s inside your machines?” Mike Lindell, the MyPillow government and prominent election denier, shouted throughout a livestream final month. He added that the corporate, which has filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit towards him, was engaged in “the most important cover-up for the most important crime in United States historical past — most likely in world historical past.”

Claims that election software program firms like Dominion helped orchestrate widespread fraud within the 2020 election have been broadly debunked within the years since former President Donald J. Trump and his allies first pushed the theories. However far-right People on social media and influencers within the information media have continued in current weeks and months to make unfounded assertions concerning the firm and its digital voting machines, pressuring authorities officers to scrap contracts with Dominion, typically efficiently.

The enduring assaults illustrate how Mr. Trump’s voter fraud claims have taken root within the shared creativeness of his supporters. They usually replicate the daunting problem that Dominion, and every other group that pulls the eye of conspiracy theorists, faces in placing false claims to relaxation.

The assaults about Dominion haven’t reached the fevered pitch of late 2020, when the corporate was forged as a central villain in an elaborate and fictitious voter fraud story. In that story, the corporate swapped votes between candidates, injected pretend ballots or allowed evident safety vulnerabilities to stay on voting machines.

Dominion says all these claims have been made with out proof to assist them.

“Almost two years after the 2020 election, no credible proof has ever been offered to any courtroom or authority that voting machines did something aside from depend votes precisely and reliably in all states,” Dominion mentioned in an emailed assertion.

On Friday, the choose in Delaware overseeing the Fox defamation case ruled that it was “CRYSTAL clear” that Fox Information and Fox Enterprise had made false claims concerning the firm — a serious setback for the community.

Many distinguished influencers have prevented mentioning the corporate since Dominion began suing distinguished conspiracy theorists in 2021. Fox Information fired Lou Dobbs that yr — solely days after it was sued by Smartmatic, one other election software program firm — saying the community was specializing in “new codecs.” Mr. Dobbs can also be a defendant in Dominion’s case towards Fox, which is scheduled to go to trial on April 17.

But there have been almost 9 million mentions of Dominion throughout social media web sites, broadcasts and conventional media since Dominion filed its first lawsuit in January 2021, together with almost one million which have talked about “fraud” or associated conspiracy theories, based on Zignal Labs, a media monitoring firm. A number of the most generally shared posts got here from Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, who tweeted final month that the lawsuits have been politically motivated, and Kari Lake, the previous Republican candidate for governor of Arizona who has superior voter fraud theories about election machines since her defeat final yr.

Mr. Lindell stays one of many loudest voices pushing unproven claims towards Dominion and digital voting machines, posting a whole lot of movies to Frank Speech, his information website, attacking the corporate with tales of voter fraud.

Final month, Mr. Lindell celebrated on his livestream after Shasta County, a conservative stronghold in Northern California, voted to make use of paper ballots after ending its contract with Dominion. A county supervisor had flown to meet privately with Mr. Lindell earlier than the vote, discussing find out how to run elections with out voting machines, based on Mr. Lindell. The supervisor finally voted to change to paper ballots.

In an interview this week with The New York Occasions, Mr. Lindell claimed to have spent thousands and thousands on campaigns to finish election fraud, specializing in abolishing digital voting techniques and changing them with paper ballots and hand counting.

“I’ll by no means again down, ever, ever, ever,” he mentioned within the interview. He added that Dominion’s lawsuit towards him, which is continuous after the United States Supreme Court declined to consider his appeal, was “frivolous” and that the corporate was “responsible.”

“They’ll’t deny it, no one can deny it,” Mr. Lindell mentioned.

Joe Oltmann, the host of “Conservative Day by day Podcast” and a promoter of voter fraud conspiracy theories, hosted an episode in late March titled “Dominion Is FINISHED,” by which he claimed that there was a “system that’s utilized in Dominion machines to truly switch ballots,” providing solely speculative assist.

“This modifications every part,” Mr. Oltmann mentioned.

Dominion despatched Mr. Oltmann a letter in 2020 demanding that he protect paperwork associated to his claims concerning the firm, which is usually step one in a defamation lawsuit.

In a livestream final month on Rumble, the streaming platform well-liked amongst right-wing influencers, Tina Peters, a former county clerk in Colorado who was indicted on 10 charges associated to allegations that she tampered with Dominion’s election tools, devoted greater than an hour to numerous election fraud claims, lots of them that includes Dominion. The dialogue included a suggestion that as a result of containers belonging to Dominion have been stamped with “Made in China,” the election system was susceptible to manipulation by the Chinese language Communist Social gathering.

Mr. Oltmann and Ms. Peters didn’t reply to requests for remark.

The Fox lawsuit has additionally added gasoline to the conspiracy concept fireplace.

Far-right information websites have largely ignored the discovering that Fox Information hosts disparaged voter fraud claims privately, whilst they gave them important airtime. As a substitute, the Gateway Pundit, a far-right website recognized for pushing voter fraud theories, targeted on separate paperwork displaying that Dominion executives “knew its voting techniques had main safety points,” the location wrote.

The paperwork confirmed the frenzied personal messages between Dominion staff as they have been troubleshooting issues, with one worker remarking, “our merchandise suck.” In an e mail, a Dominion spokeswoman famous the comment was a few splash display that was hiding an error message.

In February, Mr. Trump shared the Gateway Pundit story on Fact Social, his right-wing social community, stoking a recent wave of assaults towards the corporate.

“We is not going to be silent,” mentioned one far-right influencer whose messages are typically shared by Mr. Trump on Fact Social. “Dominion is the enemy!”


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