Dominion Voting Systems

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation
Company typePrivate
IndustryElectronic voting hardware
Founded2002; 22 years ago (2002)
Founders
  • John Poulos
  • James Hoover
Headquarters
Key people
  • John Poulos (CEO)
Owners
  • Staple Street Capital (76%)
  • John Poulos (12%)
  • PennantPark Investment[1]
Subsidiaries
Websitedominionvoting.com

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a North American[2] company that produces and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in Canada and the United States.[3] The company's headquarters are in Toronto, Ontario, where it was founded, and Denver, Colorado.[4] It develops software in offices in the United States, Canada, and Serbia.[5] Dominion produces electronic voting machines, which allow voters to cast their votes electronically, and optical scanning devices used to tabulate paper ballots.[6][7] Dominion voting machines have been used in countries around the world, primarily in Canada and the United States. Dominion systems are employed in Canada's major party leadership elections, and across the nation in local and municipal elections.

Dominion products have been increasingly used in the United States in recent years. In the 2020 United States presidential election, equipment manufactured by Dominion was used to process votes in twenty-eight states, including the swing states of Wisconsin and Georgia.[8] The company was the subject of extensive attention following the 2020 election, in which incumbent president Donald Trump was defeated by Joe Biden, with Trump and various surrogates promoting conspiracy theories, which falsely alleged that Dominion was part of an international cabal that stole the election from Trump, and that it used its voting machines to transfer millions of votes that had been cast for Trump instead to Biden.[9][10][11] There was no evidence supporting these claims, which have been debunked by various groups including election technology experts, government and voting industry officials, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).[9][10][11] These conspiracy theories were further discredited by hand recounts of the ballots cast in the 2020 presidential elections in Georgia and Wisconsin; the hand recounts in these states found that Dominion voting machines had accurately tabulated votes, that any error in the initial tabulation was instead caused by human error, and that Biden had defeated Trump in both battleground states.[12]

In December 2020 and January 2021, Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, and the American Thinker withdrew allegations they had reported about Dominion and Smartmatic after one or both companies threatened legal action for defamation.[13][14][15][16] In January 2021, Dominion filed defamation lawsuits against former Trump campaign lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, seeking US$1.3 billion in damages from each.[17][18] After Dominion filed its lawsuit against Powell, One America News Network (OANN) removed all references to Dominion and Smartmatic from its website, though without issuing public retractions.[19][20] During subsequent months, Dominion filed suits seeking $1.6 billion in damages from each of Fox News, Newsmax, OANN and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne,[21] while also suing Mike Lindell and his corporation, MyPillow. Despite motions by the defendants to dismiss the lawsuits, judges ruled that the cases against Fox News, Lindell, and MyPillow could proceed.[22][23] Fox News settled the lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million in April 2023, shortly before it was due to go to trial.[24][25] A month later, Dominion CEO John Poulos told Time magazine that the company expected to lose customers and thus would be unlikely to stay in business.[26]

  1. ^ Hsu, Tiffany (April 17, 2023). "What to Know About Dominion, the Voting Machine Company Suing Fox". The New York Times.
  2. ^ "Setting the Record Straight: Facts About Dominion". Dominion Voting Systems. Retrieved November 3, 2023.
  3. ^ "Company Overview of Dominion Voting Systems Corporation". Bloomberg. June 21, 2017. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved June 21, 2017.
  4. ^ Zuidijk, Daniel; Mehrotra, Kartikay (November 17, 2020). "Trump Lashes Voting Tech Firm With Barrage of Debunked Claims". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on November 20, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  5. ^ Thibodeau, Patrick (November 5, 2016). "One election-system vendor uses developers in Serbia". Computerworld. Archived from the original on November 15, 2020. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  6. ^ "ImageCast Evolution". Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  7. ^ "ImageCast X". Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  8. ^ Roos, Meghan (November 13, 2020). "Dominion Voting Systems "categorically denies" election tech glitches following Trump accusations". Newsweek. Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  9. ^ a b Collins, Ben (November 13, 2020). "QAnon's Dominion voter fraud conspiracy theory reaches the president". NBC News. Archived from the original on November 15, 2020. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
  10. ^ a b Nicas, Jack (November 11, 2020). "No, Dominion voting machines did not delete Trump votes". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 15, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  11. ^ a b Tucker, Eric; Bajak, Frank (November 13, 2020). "Repudiating Trump, officials say election 'most secure'". Associated Press. Archived from the original on November 15, 2020. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
  12. ^ Franck, Thomas (November 17, 2020). "Georgia says voting machine audit found no evidence of fraud or tampering". CNBC. Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  13. ^ Feldman, Josh (December 18, 2020). "Lou Dobbs Airs Stunning Fact-Check of His Own Election Claims". Mediaite. Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
  14. ^ Feldman, Josh (December 20, 2020). "Maria Bartiromo Airs Fact-Check, Adds 'We Will Keep Investigating'". Mediaite. Archived from the original on January 11, 2021. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
  15. ^ Barr, Jeremy (January 21, 2021). "Newsmax issues sweeping 'clarification' debunking its own coverage of election misinformation". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 21, 2020. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
  16. ^ Corasaniti, Nick (January 25, 2021). "Rudy Giuliani Sued by Dominion Voting Systems Over False Election Claims". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 25, 2021. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  17. ^ Brown, Emma (January 8, 2021). "Dominion sues pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, seeking more than $1.3 billion". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 9, 2021. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  18. ^ Polantz, Katelyn (January 25, 2021). "Dominion sues Giuliani for $1.3 billion over 'Big Lie'". CNN. Archived from the original on May 22, 2022. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  19. ^ Shamsian, Jacob (January 21, 2021). "Trump-ally media outlet OAN quietly deleted articles about Dominion despite publicly doubling down on election conspiracy theories". Business Insider. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  20. ^ Thalen, Mikael (January 21, 2021). "Pro-Trump outlet OAN is deleting all its articles about Dominion". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on January 21, 2021. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  21. ^ Azadi, Elahe (August 10, 2021). "Dominion sues Newsmax and One America News over election fraud claims". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 11, 2021. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
  22. ^ Dominion Voting wins key decision in lawsuit against Fox News – CNN Video, December 17, 2021, archived from the original on December 19, 2021, retrieved December 20, 2021
  23. ^ "MyPillow launches yet another effort to get Dominion's defamation lawsuit dismissed". August 25, 2021. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved August 26, 2021.
  24. ^ Timm, Jane C. (April 18, 2023). "Dominion and Fox News reach $787.5 million settlement in defamation lawsuit". NBC News. Archived from the original on April 18, 2023. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  25. ^ Coster, Helen; Queen, Jack (April 18, 2023). "Fox settles Dominion defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million, avoiding trial". Reuters. Archived from the original on April 18, 2023. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  26. ^ Racker, Mini (May 18, 2023). "Dominion CEO Predicts 'Business Ultimately Goes to Zero'". Time. Retrieved May 21, 2023.