A Dominion voting machine in Georgia. While William Kennard serves on Staple Street Capitals board, he is not one of the companys co-founders as these posts claim (here). Some posts take the claim a step further, alleging that the former owner of the building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. Didi Martinez is an associate producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit. There are currently two voting systems which are certified by the State of Florida's Division of Elections. RUMOR ALERT: Dominion Voting Systems Fraud Claims 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 . 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. Was Nashville bombing an attempt to stop audit of Dominion software? Reuters Fact Check previously debunked this claim here . There is no evidence to support the claim that the explosionin Nashville and fire in Rochester, New York,that occurred around the holidays point toward a broader conspiracy to hide election malfeasance. An executive for a voting machine company that has been the target of conspiracy theories in the aftermath of Donald Trump's 2020 election loss and been baselessly accused of swinging the. Fact check: Nashville bombing-Dominion Voting Systems link is a The building of City Blue Imaging (www.cityblueimaging.com/), a printing company in Rochester, New York, burnt down on Christmas morning after catching fire the night before ( here , here and here ). This references the claim that supercomputer Hammer and software program Scorecard were used to change votes in Bidens favor in the 2020 Presidential election. Chinese parts, hidden ownership, growing scrutiny: Inside - NBC News Shasta to become 1st California county to drop Dominion voting machines The AT&T building in downtown Nashville. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. Serious political tensions and fears of COVID-19 have led record-breaking numbers of Americans to vote early this year, either by mail or in person. 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. NewsGuard, which vets news sources based on transparency and reliability standards, found recently that among the top 100 sources of news in the U.S., sources it deemed unreliable had four times as many interactions this year compared with 2019. Lin Wood Wins Restraining Order to Stop Georgia Elections Officials The explosion injured three other people and damaged businesses in downtown Nashville, including an AT&T switching center, which resulted in widespread communications outages. As people experience their own individual Internet bubbles, it can be hard to recognize just how much misinformation exists and how the current information ecosystem compares with previous years. Sumit Ganguli is the CEO and Member of the Board at GAVS Technologies. Dominion did not respond to numerous requests from NBC News for their sales numbers. Recently, however, there are signs that elections companies, like some election officials, are pushing back against the false accusations. Some of Trump's supporters have focused on Coomer as the supposed evil mastermind. Here are the facts: CLAIM: President-elect Joe Biden's sister is married to Stephen Owens, the co-founder of the private equity firm Staple Street Capital, which owns Dominion Voting Systems . ", More:Three firefighters hurt battling three-alarm blaze in Rochester. Trump has repeatedly made comments about Dominion's voting machines and retweeted reports perpetuating the conspiracy theory, calling the company's voting machines "a disaster all over the . No available external evidence suggests AT&T was involved in any such audit, either. "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. This is part of The Associated Press ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform. Dominionwas acquired by private equity firm Staple Street Capital, co-founded by financiers Hootan Yaghoobzadeh and StephenOwens, in 2018. We kept hearing from election officials that voting machines were never on the internet, he said. 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 ). James Murphy, a spokesperson for MetLife, confirmed the company owns the building. Voting machine company executive sues Trump allies for defamation - CNN We rate thisclaim as FALSE, because it wasn't supported by our research. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Some shorter posts here and here say: Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T Data Center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion Voting machines? AT&T and Verizon and so on try and protect as best they can the security of their phone network from the rest of the internet, but its still part of the internet, Appel explained. Heres why:In the wake of theChristmas morning explosion in Nashville, Tenn., a baseless conspiracy theory startedcirculatingonlinethat claims Nashvilles downtown AT&T complex, which was damaged in the blast, had gotten a contract to conduct a "forensic audit" on Dominion Voting Systems machines. How Eric Coomer Became the 'Perfect Villain' for Voting Conspiracists Both companies have denied the posts claims, saying that there was no such audit and that Dominions machines were not recently transported to Nashville. 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 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. New York State Police Director of Public Information Beau Duffy told Reuters via email they were unaware of any state police investigations relating to the claims linking the paper company to ballots. The post reads: In Nashville 2 days ago an RV pulled up to a building and over a loud speaker announced to clear the area..the RV then blew up taking half a building with it..oh, minor detail - inside that building were the Dominion voting machines being audited. While the post does not specify which building they believed the machines were held in, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson said by email that none of their machines were anywhere in the area of the explosion or were being audited in Nashville that day. Dominion Voting Systems, a company beset by dubious election fraud claims in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, said "human error" was to blame after machines in a Pennsylvania. But none of this is true. More:Fact check: No, Joe Biden's brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems. The three largest voting manufacturing companies Election Systems &Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic have acknowledged they all put modems in some of their tabulators. The state of Michigan is currently grappling with this issue. Now the process of counting these votes . You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has dismissed the claim of an election hacking and vote manipulation operation known as Hammer and Scorecard. (here). 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. 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. Even in an election where almost all the voting was recorded on paper ballots and rigorous audits were done more than ever before, none of that helps if millions of people are working with an alternative set of facts, said Joe Kiniry, chief scientist of the open-source election technology company Free & Fair. Nashville's date on June 7 at GEODIS Park will feature Kelsea Ballerini and BRELAND -- and now, The Boykinz. 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. Revealed: Klobuchar, Warren Sent Letter Warning About Dominion, Other There was no evidence of a shooting, but both officers and witnesses heard a warning blare from the RV: "Evacuate now. On Tuesday, Coomer sued the Trump campaign and a number of allies, alleging defamation. The voting conspiracy theories that have led millions of Republicans to feel as though the election was stolen from them, which are still spreading, have also led to calls for Coomer's head. We should not connect our voting machines directly to the computer networks. Behind it is the notion that if voting systems are not online, hackers will have a harder time compromising them. Three days later, on November 6th, AT&T named William "Bill" E. Kennard Chairman of its Board of Directors. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has promised for months since the 2020 election that he had obtained Dominion, Smartmatic and ES&S voting machines, and they would be on full. He believes there is time to make real change before the 2020 election. While the voting machines themselves are not designed to be online, the larger voting systems in many states end up there, putting the voting process at risk. Sumit Ganguli - Harvard University - New York City - LinkedIn These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth. These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth.. "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. Cerberus Capital previously owned the AT&T Building, onceknownas the BellSouth Building,where the company has operated its Tennessee headquarters since the building's erection in 1994. ", 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. 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 Going After Right-Wing Media Stars Over Voting Fraud Fact check: Nashville bombing-Dominion Voting Systems link is - Yahoo! The explosion in the heart of Nashville injured three people and damaged businesses including an AT&T switching center, disrupting mobile, internet and TV services across central Tennessee and parts of four other states (here). Singer reportedly funded the original investigation This screengrab is being shared on social media without that context. 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. Vandoliers Play Tennessee Concert in Dresses to Protest State's New 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. Those networks are among the defendants Coomer is suing. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. False. Conspiracy theorists say the suicide bombing that rocked downtown Nashville was actually the result of a missile strike. We can not make our computers perfectly secure," he said. Claims that two buildings that were destroyed on Christmas Day were both holding evidence related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election are untrue. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. This is bogus. The post implies that the bombing was an attempt to stop the audit and cover up voter fraud. A newly-released court filing in the Dominion voting machines defamation lawsuit . Thank you for supporting our journalism. "The loud speaker was to warn people that the bomb was going to go off.. 5:30a on Christmas morning was picked to ensure that nobody was around.. the post reads. EDITORS NOTE (Feb. 7, 2020, 11:15 p.m.): A previous version of this article stated that Kevin Skoglund and his team had found election systems using ES&S scanners with wireless modems connected to the internet in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Warner died in the blast, according to authorities. The complicated theory began circulating soon after an RV exploded in downtown Nashville. "The specific steps taken would depend on the recommendation and the timeline required to make changes effectively.. False claims about the election, Nashville - mcall.com Mike Lindell Says FBI Surrounded Him and Seized His Cellphone Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. DNA found at the scene matched Warner's, according to an FBI press release. 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 . 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. After that podcast went out, the threats quickly arrived. Democrats ask Fox not to push 'propaganda' on 2020 election "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. Yet internet sleuths are searching for their own answers, some looking atthin ties toconspiracy theories about the 2020 election as evidence of a broader plot. Hart said that it has approximately 1,600 such tabulators in use in 11 counties in Michigan. Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. provides voting machines and tabulators. "So, the explosion 'just happened . The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. The companys sales manager, John Mealey ( here , here ), also spoke about the rumor to local ABC affiliate WHAM-TV, saying: Its crazy, the amount of misinformation that you see.. We therefore again respectfully request that EAC investigate and take action to correct this serious issue., Once you add that modem, you are de-certifying it, Skoglund said. According to the post, that firm ownedthe AT&T building outside of which the Christmas bombing occurred. Dominion Lawsuit Showcases Paul Ryan's Influence over Fox News Channel's Editorial Control. IE 11 is not supported. Audit of Dominion voting machines in Wisconsin shows minor issues - TMJ4 (Read more about, Breaking news meme generators are frequently used online to create fabricated headlines and chyrons such as this one. The posts on social mediaallege the bombing is tied to Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology supplier that's been central to many right-wing, QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. "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. 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.. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. 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. These claims are groundless. There is no evidence that the New York printing company whose building burnt down on Christmas Day was under investigation for printing false ballots. But he has no idea if that will ever be possible. The explosion injured three people and damaged several businesses, including the AT&T Building. City Blue Imaging Services' Facebook, Dec. 27. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. Even for elections nights., Appel agreed. The electronic voting system company accused the television network of spreading lies that Dominion machines were used to rig the 2020 election against Donald Trump. Staple Street Capital took part in a deal with management to acquire Dominion in 2018 (here and here). The Company offers voting systems and scanning devices, as well as resource planning, training management, quality control . It really is. In August 2021, Dominion Voting Systems programmed machines for the county's upcoming elections. . While Kennard served at the FCC and as EU ambassador and he joined AT&Ts board of directors as Chairman in Nov. 2020 (here), Greer confirmed Kennard is not the former owner of the AT&T building that was destroyed in Nashville, as the posts claim. With unfounded fraud claims swirling, red California county dumps Dominion voting machines. hide caption. Shortly afterwards, social media users began circulating variants of a conspiracy theory holding that AT&T had been engaged to undertake a "forensic audit of Dominion voting machines," the latter of which were frequent targets of false election fraud claims made by President Donald Trump and his supports after Trump lost his re-election bid in November 2020: The implication of the conspiracy theory was that the explosion had been intended to destroy the machines before they were audited in order to cover up evidence of massive voting fraud. But none of this is true. 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. The extent of our relationship is this: In 2009, Smartmatic licensed the use of a Dominion voting machine for use in the Philippines. Kevin Monahan is a producer for the NBC News Investigative Unit. According to Dominion, vote-switching and software malfunction allegations are "all baseless claims" that "have been debunked by election officials, subject matter experts and third-party fact. Select an Infowars smear of Dominion Voting Systems. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. Jim Greer, Assistant Vice President of Corporate Communications at AT&T, told Reuters via email: None of the things in the post are true.. The ATT building in Nashville that was affected by the bomb was owned by Cerebus (sic) Capital. This is bogus. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Ohio county rejects Dominion voting machines in response to pressure Fact check: A New York printing company that burned down was not under The wishes are that I forever have to look over my shoulder," Coomer said. The "Vulture", Dominion Voting Systems, AT&T, CNN, and Twitter In an email to PolitiFact, a Dominion spokesperson said the company and AT&T are calling on everyone to reject these baseless rumors: "Americans should continue to seek information from verifiable, trusted sources, such as law enforcement authorities.". There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. Dominion has played a central role in a number of unfounded conspiracy theories alleging election fraud, from foreign ownership to switching votes from one candidate to another. Dominion Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software. Did AT&T Have a Contract to Audit Dominion Voting Systems? A team of election security experts used a Google for servers to challenge claims that voting machines do not connect to the internet and found some did. More:Fact check: No, Joe Biden's brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems. Coomer said in addition to his own information, the personal addresses of everyone from his parents and siblings to his ex-girlfriends have been posted online. However, the firm cited in that version of the claim Cerberus Capital Management doesnt own Dominion nor is it connected to Staple Street Capital, whichacquired Dominion in 2018. Dominion Voting Systems previously sent OAN letters threatening to sue, accusing the network of spreading the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the election-technology company manipulated. Social media users have been sharing content online that claims AT&T had a contract to do a forensic audit on Dominion Voting Systems machines and that the Dec. 25 explosion in Nashville,. 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. The accusation started with a conservative activist in Colorado, Joe Oltmann. FACT CHECK: Does Joe Biden's Brother-In-Law Own Dominion Voting Systems? In counties that didn't use Dominion systems, Biden got 1.54 million votes to Trump's 1.52 million. But that is an overstatement, according to a team of 10 independent cybersecurity experts who specialize in voting systems and elections. Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. ", Below the headline is an image that looks like its a picture from a CNN broadcast, with chyron that announces the Nashville bomber "died from COVID.". With the 2020 presidential election only ten months away, Appel and Skoglund believe all modems can and should be removed from election systems. Much of the voting equipment was by Dominion. Those modems connect to cell phone networks, which, in turn, are connected to the internet. The post, which has been shared almost 900 times, makes two claims: A building damaged in the Nashville explosion was holding Dominion Voting Systems machines set to be audited, and in New. Kevin Skoglund, senior technical advisor at the National Election Defense Coalition. Thank you for supporting our journalism. Social media is home to several conspiracy theories about the explosion in Nashville on Christmas Day. We should be unplugging all of these machines from the internet, Skoglund said. AT&T did not have a contract to audit Dominion machines and was not holding Dominion machines in its Nashville building, both companies confirmed to The Associated Press. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. Some users seemed to recognize the story as fake, but others didnt. APS ASSESSMENT: False. Mike Lindell Claims Dominion Voting 'Cover-Up' Is 'Coming Apart'