The 23-page report signed by a former Republican congressional candidate with a history of spreading misinformation about Michigan's election claims Dominion "is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.". These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth.. By Helen Coster and Jack Queen (Reuters) -A new filing from Dominion Voting Systems became public on Monday, as an April trial approaches in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by the voting technology company against Fox News over the U.S. cable news giant's coverage of the 2020 presidential election. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. But to draw that connection, a number of other groups are brought into the fold and it doesn't add up. CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved . Behind it is the notion that if voting systems are not online, hackers will have a harder time compromising them. AT&T had a contract to conduct a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems in Nashville just prior to a December 2020 explosion in that city. The wishes are that I forever have to look over my shoulder," Coomer said. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Our mission is to exceed the expectations of our customers, the taxpayers, by operating at the highest levels of accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and accountability in a customer-centered environment. Secretary Hargett is the chief executive officer of the Department of State with oversight of more than 300 employees. As of now, the person of interest identified by the FBI in connection with the explosion, Anthony Quinn Warner, is believed to have been "paranoid about 5G technology" (another frequent subject of conspiracy theories) rather than possessing any election-related motive. Now, the alleged Dominion Voting Systems tie. Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. President Donald Trump's attorney Lin Wood reportedly experienced a series of ups and downs Sunday in a court battle to ensure Georgia elections officials do not wipe Dominion voting machines, and won a temporary restraining order following a night-time Zoom hearing. Once they had identified such systems, they contacted the relevant election officials and also provided the information to reporter Kim Zetter, who published the findings in Vices Motherboard in August. Three days later, on November 6th, AT&T named William "Bill" E. Kennard Chairman of its Board of Directors. "You can see as theres a line flying in, theres a little bit of a glow and then theres the explosion," a narrator says in the video. Breitbart, by Hannah Bleau Original Article. In a letter obtained by NBC News sent to the EAC on Tuesday, the nonprofit public interest group Free Speech for People and the National Election Defense Coalition asked the agency to look into whether ES&S violated agency regulations by implying that DS200 voting machines with modems are EAC certified. Generally speaking, the media in those locations are kinda clamoring to get unofficial results as quickly as possible., When asked if the desire for speed was at odds with accuracy and security, Burt said, its not my place to judge that.. While William Kennard serves on Staple Street Capitals board, he is not one of the companys co-founders as these posts claim (here). On Dec. 27, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran said the explosion appeared to be a suicide bombing carried out by a Warner. There was no evidence of a shooting, but both officers and witnesses heard a warning blare from the RV: "Evacuate now. His top goal right now is pretty simple hoping one day it'll be safe to return home. Jake Rollow, director of communications for the Michigan Department of State, said in a statement to NBC News, Even though the results are unofficial, if these unofficial results were disrupted or manipulated, it could still cause confusion on Election Day., "The department will consider the advisory commissions recommendations to improve the security of the process," Rollow continued. "Anthony Warner is the bomber. Skoglund said that they identified only one company among the systems they detected on line, ES&S. Joe Bidens Brother in Law, Steven Owens, is the cofounder of Staple Street Execs along with William Kennard (mentioned above).. "I actually am in fear for my safety," Coomer said recently, speaking by video call from an undisclosed location to Colorado Public Radio. The post provides no links to evidence for their allegations. Speaker 13 . No available external evidence suggests AT&T was involved in any such audit, either. That flood reached Dominion the week after the election, according to Zignal, and misinformation related to the company's machines has been mentioned more than 10 million times since then. There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. "I'm in fear for my family's safety. But the company did not account for the new voting centers, so the Williamson County. The AT&T buildingon Second Avenueis owned by BellSouth Telecommunications, an operating company of AT&T, according to local records. He also serves on the boards of Ford Motor Company, MetLife and Duke Energy Corporation (here). The conspiracy theory has grown into a movement that is promoted by right-wing extremists. This screengrab is being shared on social media without that context. ", More:Three firefighters hurt battling three-alarm blaze in Rochester. Note that aspects of Tennessee law may differ with what is seen on the videos. Note that aspects of Tennessee law may differ with what is seen on the videos. Please note t he instructions and videos shown here have been prepared by the manufacturers and are general in nature. A Dominion voting machine in Georgia. Dominion Voting Systems lost a sale of more than 1,400 new machines on Wednesday after commissioners for Stark County, Ohio, voted down the purchase against a recommendation from the. New warnings of hacking risks for voting systems connected to the internet, New questions about voting machines as 2020 election approaches, Oregon officials say vote-by-mail system improves security and turnout, Manufacturers who make voting machines testify before Congress. Even for elections nights., Appel agreed. DNA found at the scene matched Warner's, according to an FBI press release. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. "Dominion and AT&T have both called on the media and the public to reject the baseless rumors circulating on social media, which suggest without evidence that there was some election-related connection to the Nashville explosion," a spokesperson for Dominion told USA TODAY. While federal investigators are still looking into the bombing, law enforcement officials have said Warner was responsible and died in the blast. And so we set out to try and find the voting machines to see if we could find them on the internet, and especially the back-end systems that voting machines in the precinct were connecting to to report their results.. All those. More:Neighbor recalls warning, countdown before Nashville explosion. The claim: Dominion Voting Systems is tied up in the Nashville bombing, based on the affected AT&T building's ownership and that the cellular company was contracted to audit Dominion's. The accusation started with a conservative activist in Colorado, Joe Oltmann. Spokespeople for both AT&T and Dominion have confirmed that AT&T did not hold a contract to audit Dominion, nor had any of Dominions equipment been moved to Nashville in preparation for such an audit. "The voting machine lobby, led by the biggest company, ES&S, believes they are above the law," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Intelligence Committee who co-signed the letter.. Some of the posts (here) try connect the explosion to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama by claiming that William Kennard, Obamas EU ambassador and Clintons FCC chair, is on AT&Ts board and owns the Nashville AT&T building that was destroyed in the blast. AT&T had a contract to conduct a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems in Nashville just prior to a December 2020 explosion in that city. Some of the posts attempted to further link AT&T to Dominion by claiming a former owner of the AT&T building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. Dominion was the first to snap. Singer reportedly funded the original investigation Cerberus Capital did briefly own an AT&T building, but the post is wrong about which one. Americans should continue to seek information from verifiable, trusted sources, such as law enforcement authorities, Dominion Voting Systems added. ", Dominion Voting Systems Employee Sues Trump Campaign And Allies, Alleging Defamation, Former Election Security Official Says It Will Take Years To Undo Disinformation, Barr Says No Need For Special Counsel For Hunter Biden Probe, Election Fraud Claims. You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. CNN didnt report that Anthony Warner, the person authorities have identified as the bomber, died from COVID-19. ", More:Nashville police bodycam footage shows raw moments of chaos before and after explosion. "Some of the threats that I've gotten have made very clear that these actors are in it for the long haul. Some on social media have speculated that AT&T was contracted to audit Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology supplier that has become central to false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. (Read more about ourpartnership with Facebook.). Much of the voting equipment was by Dominion. Dominion has no connection to AT&T, the building, Nashville, family members of the Bidens or the Clintons, and Staple Street is not owned by Cerberus, said Tony Fratto, a partner at the PR firm Hamilton Place Strategies who emailed the AP on behalf of Dominion. AP'S ASSESSMENT: False. The extent of our relationship is this: In 2009, Smartmatic licensed the use of a Dominion voting machine for use in the Philippines. A widely sharedpost on Facebook alleges that four days before the bombing, a rumor circulated that AT&T was awarded a contract to audit Dominion's voting machines, which were supposedly being sent to Nashville. The row housed Simply the Best $10 Boutique at 176 (here), Ensemble boutique at 174 (www.ensemblenashville.com/) and the Pride & Glory Tattoo Parlor at 172 (www.prideandglorytattoo.com/), as well as apartments on the upper floors (here). There is no reason to suppose that it would be likely, or even possible, that these buildings, would be used to audit voting machines. For election systems to be online, even momentarily, presents a serious problem, according to Appel. This conspiracy theory has been debunked by various experts as reported by Reuters here and other fact checkers including Snopes, Factcheck.org and PolitiFact here , here and here . There is no evidence that the AT&T switching center damaged by the explosion (here) housed a supercomputer being used to alter the elections outcome. He also serves on 16 boards and commissions, on two of which he is the presiding member. AT&T does not hold a contract to audit Dominions software or machines and did not have any of the companys equipment in its Nashville building. On January 8, it filed a defamation suit against pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, seeking $1.3 billion in damages. No amount of transparency at the county and state level can really combat the sort of megaphone that Trump wields, Kiniry says. The social media post states "AT&T got contract [sic] to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week" before the bombing. Oltmann claimed that Coomer said with a laugh on the call that he would make sure Trump didn't win the election. Jim Greer, a spokesperson for AT&T, told USA TODAY the claims are "not true. Claims that two buildings that were destroyed on Christmas Day were both holding evidence related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election are untrue. While the companys website states that zero of its voting tabulators are connected to the internet, ES&S told NBC News 14,000 of their DS200 tabulators with online modems are currently in use around the country. The services and oversight found in the Secretary of State's office reach every department and agency in state government. Then Acting Undersecretary for Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security Jeanette Manfra said those words in 2017, testifying before Congress while she was responsible for the security of the nations voting system. Their evidence: a grainy black-and-white video. More:Fact check: Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims. Cerberus Capital Management, the firm named in the posts, does not own Dominion, nor does it own the company that does own Dominion, Staple Street Capital. There is no evidence that the New York printing company whose building burnt down on Christmas Day was under investigation for printing false ballots. "You may want to read a book some day to learn about my reference to rising like a #phoenix. In the wake of the Christmas morning explosion in Nashville, Tenn., a baseless conspiracy theory started circulating online that claims Nashville's downtown AT&T complex, which was damaged in. AT&T was not contracted to audit Dominion Voting Systems' machines, and no Dominion machines were being held in the building outside of which the bomb exploded, spokespeople for both AT&T and Dominion confirmed. IE 11 is not supported. A public relations firmtold the Associated Presson behalf of Dominion that the company "has no connection to AT&T, the building, Nashville, family members of the Bidens or the Clintons, and Staple Street is not owned by Cerberus. Some posts have said the Nashville explosion was caused by a missile. Both companies have denied the posts claims, saying that there was no such audit and that Dominions machines were not recently transported to Nashville. Detailed voter instructions for the Infinity voting unit, How to Vote an Optical Scan Ballot with Unisyn Equipment, Public Records Policy and Records Request Form. the dominion voting system that was the subject of an enormous amount of controversy, is a dramatic improvement over prior forms of voting. Dominion Lawsuit Showcases Paul Ryan's Influence over Fox News Channel's Editorial Control. Both companies have also denied that AT&T held a contract to audit machines from Dominion Voting Systems (other Fact Checks on these claims can be seen here and here ). Similar claims have already been debunked by Reuters (here). Thats an interesting coincidence.. The company put the building back on the market shortly thereafter; MetLife Inc., throughsubsidiary Prefco Fourteen, now owns the building, public records show. Sumit Ganguli is the CEO and Member of the Board at GAVS Technologies. Full Story. According to the post, that firm ownedthe AT&T building outside of which the Christmas bombing occurred. He is focused on New Technologies around AI led Predictive Analytics, Smart Machines, IT Process Automation etc.. through . Rumors about an investigation into the company do not even appear in web searches until after the fire. Dominion was founded in the wake of a different controversy: the failure of punch-card voting machines and their infamous hanging chads in the 2000 election. The conservative network has seen its ratings surge in . Powell was one of the faces of the Trump. The ATT building in Nashville that was affected by the bomb was owned by Cerebus (sic) Capital. Even if an election is run perfectly, it doesn't matter to a sizable portion of the public who believes it was unfair. Voting Systems in Tennessee | Tennessee Secretary of State Proposed Constitutional Amendments Voting Systems in Tennessee View list by county (.pdf) and learn more about each system using the links below. No one is currently working out of the building. That is just inviting trouble.. Were focusing on moving forward.. A sample ballot is shown via the Dominion Voting Systems that Georgians use to vote. Dominion Voting Systems, a voting machine manufacturer founded in Canada, made equipment that is used in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The same Facebook post also said Dominion voting machines were being audited in the AT&T building that was destroyed by a bomb in Nashville. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. The claim implies the explosion was an elaborate plot to destroy voting machines that might have yielded evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. "The minute I saw it, it left a big pit in my stomach," he said. Since the 2016 election, Michigan authorized $82 million dollars to upgrade its election systems. In August 2021, Dominion Voting Systems programmed machines for the county's upcoming elections. The broadcast then began a 15-minute countdown,before the RV exploded, according to The Tennessean. Posted By: Dreadnought, 2/28/2023 9:52:47 PM Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News highlights former House Speaker Paul Ryan's alleged influence over Fox News Channel's (FNC) editorial control, reportedly urging . While the investigation is ongoing, the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that a man named Anthony Warner was responsible for the bombing and was killed in the blast ( here , here ). We kept hearing from election officials that voting machines were never on the internet, he said. The Nashville outlet found . for the blast that rattled downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, social media users have invented their own far-fetched theories. Others are not so sure, and the state has set up an advisory committee. In addition to Coomer's lawsuit, Dominion is threatening legal action against Sidney Powell, who has been among the loudest voices pushing conspiracy theories on behalf of the Trump campaign. In February, Dominion filed a lawsuit against Lindell and his company, alleging he defamed them by repeatedly claiming to have evidence their voting machines fraudulently flipped votes. The following three posts were flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. Heres more information on Facebooks fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536. "To the misinformed people on @Twitter and @instagram #cityblueimaging does not print #ballots, does not do work for #Phoenixgraphics and was never owned by the owner of #phoenixgraphics," the company wrote on its Facebook page on Dec. 27. 2023 www.statesman.com. While a building was destroyed in a blast in Nashville on Christmas Day, and a printing company in New York state caught fire on Christmas Eve and later burned down, neither building held evidence related to the U.S. elections. Early Christmas morning, police in Nashville came across an RV parked on Second Avenue, outside an AT&T transmission building, whileresponding to reports of shots fired in the area, Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron told The Tennessean that day. More:Fact check: No, Joe Biden's brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems. The location of the heavily damaged buildings seen in the photograph accompanying the post appear to show 170 to 176 2nd Avenue North in Nashville after the explosion. Others add that the explosion took place as the voting machines were being moved to Nashville and provide political links as proof of a conspiracy. Donate State Editions California Florida This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. These claims are groundless. Its crazy, the amount of misinformation that you see, Mealy said. hide caption. Posts online claim that the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville was an attempt to cover up election fraud because AT&T was conducting an audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and that. Dominion has been the target of a wide range of false posts since American voters chose Joe Biden as their next president, despite no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election. "So, the explosion just happened to be at the AT&T location where they just so happen to control the cooling system for the super computer and house the dominion voting machines and drives for forensic audit", "Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T data center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion voting machines?,"onefrom Dec. 26 reads. Representatives for companies involved say there is no truth to the claims. Posts include debunked conspiracy claims attempting to tie the Nashville explosion Dominion voting systems. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. The House Committee on Administration held a congressional hearing yesterday which was the first time the heads of the three major vendors, representing at least 80 percent of U.S. voting machines, appeared together for questioning. Shasta will be the first of 40 California counties that used Dominion in the November 2022 election to drop the voting system, Shasta County Clerk/Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen told the . The Genesius Times describes itself as the "most reliable source of fake news on the planet" and that it strives "to provide the most up-to-date, accurate fake news on the Internet,", "Nashville explosion a missile strike??" AT&T does not hold a contract to audit Dominions software or machines and did not have any of the companys equipment in its Nashville building. Last month Dominion filed a $1.6bn defamation suit against Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, accusing it of trying to boost ratings by amplifying the bogus claims. Other posts on social media have gone a step further, alleging that Dominion is tied to the bombing through ownership of the affected AT&T building. The City of Rochester government and police did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. So that unofficial election results can more quickly be relayed to the public. The AT&T building in downtown Nashville. The Christmas morning bomb went off on Second Avenue, outside an AT&T transmission building. Hismotive is unknown. Once a hacker starts talking to the voting machine through the modem, the hacker cannot just change these unofficial election results, they can hack the software in the voting machine and make it cheat in future elections, he said. It really is. Last week, Dominion filed its fourth defamation lawsuit, this one a $1.6 billion whopper charging that Fox News spread the bogus conspiracy claim in order to boost ratings that plummeted after. These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth. In 2006, Cerberus Capital acquired it, according to a 2006 News Channel 5 Nashville report. Federal officials have identified the man believed to be behind the bombing, and they are working to discern a motive. At its core is the prediction thatan alleged mass arrest ofhigh-profile Democrats and celebritieswould be carried out while now-former President Donald Trump secretly savedthe world from a satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals. DNA from human remains found at the scene matched Warner, and investigators found financial records for components that he may have used to construct the bomb. But he has no idea if that will ever be possible. However, there are no news reports available online that mention that the business was involved with an investigation related to the election, and Google searches for any mention of the company and an investigation into ballot fraud from the start of September to the date of the fire do not reveal even online rumors to that effect circulating before the fire broke out (here), The companys Facebook page has addressed rumors that have spread since the fire, saying: To the misinformed people on @Twitter and @instagram #cityblueimaging does not print #ballots (here). The bomb is in this vehicle and will explode." reads the post caption from Red Pill Radio, a Facebook account that bears the slogan of the, However, the firm cited in that version of the claim Cerberus Capital Management doesnt own Dominion nor is it connected to Staple Street Capital, which, PolitiFact's partnership with Facebook here, Our ethics policy for PolitiFact journalists, WRAL partners with PolitiFact NC to fact check political stories. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. ES&S has repeatedly advertised its DS200 with internal modem a critical component to ES&Ss voting systems as being EAC certified when, in fact, it is not, the letter said. There can still be security holes that allow hackers to get into the phone network.. Tim Walz signed into law one of the largest voter . The voting rights of more than 55,000 formerly incarcerated Minnesotans were restored on Friday, as Gov. Dominion did not respond to numerous requests from NBC News for their sales numbers. Dominion is a company that supplies voting machines in more than two-dozen states, including Ohio. Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday morning filed three $1.6 billion defamation lawsuits against two pro-Trump media networks and an outspoken Trump ally, the latest in a string of suits from the . There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. The post also mentions the Kraken or supercomputer and says that the cooling system for this computer was located in the AT&T building. Copyright 2023 Politifact. The Trump followers believe that the explosion was actually a missile strike aimed at destroying. More on Dominion:Fact check: Viral photo shows fake logo and slogan for Dominion Voting Systems. So, the explosion just happened to be at the AT&T location where they just so happen to control the cooling system for the super computer and house the dominion voting machines and drives for forensic audit, Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T data center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion voting machines? read another post. It was an assurance designed to bolster public confidence in the way America votes: Voting machines are not connected to the internet.. Whether it's the standard online trolls, voicemails that are left almost on a daily basis, being called a traitor to this country, I can't even begin to describe what effect this has had on my life," he said. The machines America votes on seem to be capturing the interest of some in Congress. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. The media intelligence platform Zignal Labs, in an analysis performed at NPR's request, found that misinformation narratives related to vote-by-mail systems alone were mentioned across the media spectrum more than 40 million times since Election Day. "It does appear that the intent was more destruction than death," said David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, inan interview on NBC's "Today." Some users seemed to recognize the story as fake, but others didnt. The report claims the results of the election in . More:Fact check: No, Joe Biden's brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems. The explosion injured three other people and damaged businesses in downtown Nashville, including an AT&T switching center, which resulted in widespread communications outages. "AT&T got a contract to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week," one Dec. 27postsays. Examples can be seen here , here and here . Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. NBC News reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which declined to comment on the topic of modem security in voting machine tabulators and scanners. Smartmatic, a competitor of Dominion's that has also been the subject of wild rumors, has demanded that numerous news networks take back their allegations against it. 2023 Tennessee Secretaryof State |Web and Social Media Policies. "The specific steps taken would depend on the recommendation and the timeline required to make changes effectively.. In an interview with Rochester's ABC 13, City Blue Imagingsales manager John Mealy condemned misinformation about the tragedy and dismissed the claims again. "When we're in the realm of coupling disinformation from both foreign and domestic sources, and government and nongovernment sources, and none of it is really grounded in reality evidence doesn't help much," he said. Owners of Dominion Voting Systems,(the company many people are accusing of voter fraud) are former executives from Cerebus," another post reads. Modems in voting machines are a bad idea, said Appel. Its true that an AT&T-owned building in Nashville was one of many buildings damaged in Fridays. An online search turns up segments on the pro-Trump outlets Newsmax and One America News Network discussing the allegations as well as people accusing Coomer of treason and calling for him to be publicly executed. A spokesperson for the FBI's Denver Field Office confirmed that the FBI executed the . One theory shared thousands of times on Facebook over the weekend tries to connect the explosion to voting machines used in the Nov. 3 election. . Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. provides voting machines and tabulators.
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