“Dominion is now having to find a way to distance itself from the narrative — the fear being that this is what the general public associates with Dominion in the future.”
(Bryce Webster-Jacobsen, Intelligence Operations Expert)
Flawed election lawsuits, pocketing Republican supporters’ election campaign money and using that in personal business, accusing Democrats of election theft, and conspiring a coup with the military describe the post-election days of Donald Trump. With all of this propaganda in line, Trump is now pursuing his agenda to defame the Dominion voting system.
After biting the dust in all of his legal battles and losing the electoral college vote, his last attempt to portray the notion of election fraud came in the form of targeting the Dominion software.
The Dominion voting system was responsible for providing voting machines and software for the 2020 elections. Throwing unsubstantiated allegations on the reputable company is just a tactic to satisfy the ego of the millions of Republicans who still believe that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.
The Trump campaign opined that the votes cast to Republicans were deleted or switched from the voting machines, and they were transferred to a vote for Joe Biden.
Trump’s baseless claims were wrong both mathematically and technically. Dominion and CISA rejected these claims to defend the American mandate.
What are the prevailing conspiracy theories regarding the Dominion voting system, and how are these claims unsubstantiated mathematically? Let’s have a look.
Conspiracy and Irony: Trump’s Favorite Duo:
Trump was against the use of technology in the election from day one. As he could not hinder the progress of mail-in ballots, he started to build the narrative against the election process itself.
Just after the election, when he lost the American trust, he started to attack the voting software company along with his other tactics.
Trump took to Twitter and wrote,
“Report: Dominion deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide. Data analysis finds 221,000 Pennsylvania votes switched from President Trump to Biden. 941,000 Trump votes deleted. States using Dominion Voting Systems switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden.”
(Trump)
This was not the only time Trump criticized the Dominion voting software. In fact, he did it almost a dozen times to make sure that Republicans started believing the narrative.
Not only in Pennsylvania, but he tried to make the election of all the battleground states controversial.
Poor Politician, Worst Mathematician: Trump Trying to Trick Math to Support his Claims:
Trump accused Dominion of switching or deleting 941,000 of his votes alone in Pennsylvania. However, a simple mathematical calculation is enough to bust this theory of Donald Trump.
Dominion served only 14 counties in Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential election, where 1.3 million votes were cast in total. Out of these, Trump got 676,000 votes leaving just 624,000 votes in return, most of which were cast in favor of Biden.
This sum itself is less than what Trump claimed to be switched. This indicates that all the post-election talks of Donald Trump regarding the voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential election were just a failed attempt to manipulate minds.
The Trump campaign voiced that the Dominion voting system deliberately orchestrated the machines in favor of Biden to give him an unfair means of winning the election.
Dominion Voting Company Busting Trump’s Theories
The controversy sparked as Biden won a blue state of Georgia, hence pushing Trump out of the presidential race. The core of the Trump claim was that the Dominion voting software switched his votes in favor of Biden, a claim which the company vehemently denied.
As Trump registered his protest on Twitter, the tech company defended itself from all the baseless allegations.
In its official statement, Dominion said,
“(The company) denies claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems.”
(Dominion)
Currently, Dominion is the second-largest voting supplier company, credited with providing digital voting machines to 28 states in America. It is trusted among the masses since the inauguration of the digital voting machines in the United States after the highly controversial election of 2000.
Not only the Dominion voting company but the Trump-made Federal agency Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also debunked the theories of the so-called “deleted” and “switched votes.”
In one of the official statements, CISA said,
“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised. “
(CISA)
Similarly, CISA ex-director Chris Krebs, who was later fired for rejecting the conspiracy theories of Trump, also retweeted the message of stopping “wild and baseless claims about voting machines.”
Not only this, but CISA also labeled the 2020 presidential election as the most transparent in the history of the United States.
Media Supporting the Baseless Trump Theories:
Conservative media outlets have also pursued this falsified narrative of Donald Trump. Although major media networks stayed away from the conspiracy theories of Trump, he still managed to reach a handful of people waiting to be brainwashed by Trump’s narrative building.
One of the emerging highly-Republican leaning media networks, OANN, supported the fake news initiated by Trump.
Lilia Fifield, one of the top anchors of the said media network, was among the first to write about these so-called doctored machines. She tried to be in the good books of Donald Trump even before Trump said anything about the machines. She wrote,
“Election systems across the country are found to have deleted millions of votes cast for President Trump…According to an unaudited analysis of data obtained from Edison Research, states using Dominion Voting Systems may have switched as many as 435,000 votes from President Trump to Joe Biden, and the author also finds another 2.7 million Trump votes appear to have been deleted by Dominion, including almost one million Trump votes in Pennsylvania alone.”
(OANN’s Lilia Fifield)
Gateway Pundits found similar claims; however, Pundits attributed the figures to thedonald.win, whose author cited Edison Research as the source of the claims. Donald Trump Jr. also made similar claims.
A national coalition was formed to investigate these claims, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Association of State Election Directors.
The coalition concluded that there was no evidence found that could prove that the Dominion voting system deleted or changed any votes.
Edward Perez, an election technology expert, also told the New York Times that these claims of defect in voting software are “outright disinformation.”
Dominion also noted that Edison Research published no such report that cited the figures claimed by One America News Network and others.
Larry Rosin, the Edison Research president, also told The Dispatch Fact Check that no such report was published from this platform.
Two counties in Michigan, including Antrim County, showed some irregularities, but they were human errors and had nothing to do with the voting software.
Dominion Linkage with ANTIFA: Another Conspiracy Theory to Defame Voting Software:
A video has been circulating on different social media platforms claiming that the electronic voting companies Dominion and Smartmatic are linked with ANTIFA and Venezuela. The video says that Dominion has employed Smartmatic voting software and that the head of both companies has direct links with ANTIFA and left-leaning groups in Venezuela.
The video also claimed that Dominion deliberately switched votes in Virginia, showing a spreadsheet that is claimed to have been taken from the New York Times.
Samira Saba, a communications Director for Smartmatic, told Reuters via email that the company has no interest or any link to Dominion. She also made it clear that Smartmatic has never provided Dominion with any voting software or hardware type.
In the video, the presenter shows two spreadsheets from Gateway Pundits, the source of which is said to be the New York Times. The spreadsheet shows figures of the vote count in Virginia showing voter fraud.
First, the figures used in the spreadsheet are wrong and have been denied by the election officials. Second, a spokesperson from the New York Times told Reuters that the media outlet has nothing to do with the spreadsheet that the Gateway Pundit cites.
Furthermore, the video claimed that the founder of Dominion supports ANTIFA. The CEO of Dominion clearly states on the company’s website that the company works with all political parties in the United States and is a nonpartisan company.
Similarly, the video says that the two are close friends of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. While it is true that Smartmatic is founded by two Venezuelans, there has been no link found between them and Chavez.
The company also declared that it has no links with any government or political party in any country.
Dominion Sued Trump’s Campaign for Watering Conspiracy Theories
As Trump tried to defame the company, the company finally decided to sue the Trump campaign.
A senior employee at the Dominion voting system, Eric Coomer, sued the Trump campaign for defamation in a Colorado court.
Coomer is the director of the product and strategy and security for the voting technology company. The complaint was filed against senior members of the Trump campaign, the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and conservative media outlets such as One America News Network and Newsmax Media.
The lawsuit says that the Trump campaign has deliberately spread fake voter fraud claims for deleting and switching votes. The company provided voting software and hardware in 28 states for presidential and local elections.
Smartmatic also delivered legal notices to conservative media outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax for airing segments alleging the voting company committed deliberate voter fraud.
Conclusion
Disinformation and baseless claims of voter fraud are nothing new, considering what the United States has witnessed in the previous few weeks.
The conspiracy theories promoted by the Trump campaign regarding the 2020 election are as baseless as they could be. However, he is still trying to pursue them.
The Dominion voting system software is well regarded due to its record in the United States. Blaming a company without any proof will only backfire on Trump.
As he spends his last days in office and waits for the legal battles against him to be initiated, the only thing he could do now to make the election results more controversial is by lobbying for January 6, where Republicans are ready to create chaos during the official announcement of Biden’s presidency.
Video Summary:
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.