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.". ", More:Nashville police bodycam footage shows raw moments of chaos before and after explosion. 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. Georgia, the site of so much controversy in the 2020 election, hurriedly switched in response to a judge's order in 2019 from all-electronic voting machines to Dominion models that. Law enforcement authorities have suggested that Warner may have been paranoid about 5G technology, a QAnon-related conspiracy theory that makes an array of unproven claims including that ithelps spread COVID-19and is used as a spying tool by the government. Hart said that it has approximately 1,600 such tabulators in use in 11 counties in Michigan. There's a third company, Clear Ballot Group which is currently under testing by the state of Florida, the official audit review of their software began May 17th, but that is not . 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. Did City Blue Imaging Print Voting Ballots, Then Burn Down? The following three posts were flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. This material may not be reproduced without permission. 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. Even if an election is run perfectly, it doesn't matter to a sizable portion of the public who believes it was unfair. Staple Street Capital has a managing director and co-founder named Stephen Owens. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994 as a creative outgrowth of his wide-ranging interests in a variety of subjects (particularly folklo read more. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth.. More:Fact check: Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims. In a Dominion-themed segment, an Infowars host speaking during a November Washington, D.C., rally presaged the January 6 violence by hyping the . 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. There may not be answers to the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville anytime soon. View list by county(.pdf) and learn more about each system using the links below. Donald Trump went after media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his network Fox News in rants on Truth Social where he once again pushed the baseless and debunked claim that the . The RV was parked on Second Avenue in Nashville, outside an AT&Ttransmission building, among other businesses and residences. 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. Tre Hargett was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly to serve as Tennessees 37th secretary of state in 2009 and re-elected in 2013, 2017, and 2021. We kept hearing from election officials that voting machines were never on the internet, he said. But election integrity advocates worry the disinformation won't truly begin to recede until political leaders such as Trump stop questioning the election's legitimacy. AT&T not conducting voting machine audit near Nashville explosion site. 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. 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 ). All those. Lindell told the Minnesota Reformer, that he and a friend were on their way home from duck hunting in Iowa and were in the Hardee's drive through when three cars with four FBI agents surrounded his vehicle. 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 specific steps taken would depend on the recommendation and the timeline required to make changes effectively.. However, both AT&T and Dominion have disclaimed the notion that the former company was engaged in audit of the latter, or that any Dominion-related systems were being moved to Nashville in preparation for a "forensic audit" (by anyone). ", 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.". 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 ). All of these businesses were reported to be damaged in the blast (here). 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. Examples can be seen here , here and here . It's just the latest example of how people's lives are being upended and potentially ruined by the unprecedented flurry of disinformation this year. The company put the building back on the market shortly thereafter; MetLife Inc., throughsubsidiary Prefco Fourteen, now owns the building, public records show. False. There is a bomb. The accusation started with a conservative activist in Colorado, Joe Oltmann. 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 . 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. 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, which damaged an AT&T building, was tied to this audit. By the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump's campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and. Federal officials have identified the man believed to be behind the bombing, and they are working to discern a motive. 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. 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. A spokesperson for Dominion Voting Systems told Reuters via email: Dominion calls 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.. In the wake of the Christmas morning explosion in Nashville, Tenn., a baseless conspiracy theory started circulating online that 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. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Rumors about an investigation into the company do not even appear in web searches until after the fire. 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. Dominion Voting Systems which commands more than a third of the voting-machine market without having Washington lobbyists has hired its first, a high-powered firm that includes a. It's the first . 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. Investigators say the explosion in Nashville was perpetrated by a 63-year-old Tennessean named Anthony Warner, who blared a warning to nearby people from his RV requesting they evacuate before the bomb detonated. The company, which sells electronic voting hardware and software, contends that some Fox News employees deliberately amplified false claims by Trump supporters that Dominion machines had changed . A Dominion voting machine in Georgia. Last fall, when ES&S gave NBC News an exclusive tour at its headquarters in Omaha, Neb., Chief Executive Officer Tom Burt defended using modems when asked about the Sprint and Verizon modems seen in ES&S's testing area. City Blue Imaging Services' Facebook, Dec. 27. Americans should continue to seek information from verifiable, trusted sources, such as law enforcement authorities, Dominion Voting Systems added. "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. Their evidence: a grainy black-and-white video. The company recently threatened a number of groups repeating the claims with lawsuits, including One America News Network, Newsmax and Fox News. Heres more information on Facebooks fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536, Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. Spokespeople for AT&T and Dominion confirmed to the AP that AT&T had no contract to audit Dominion machines, and no Dominion machines were to be sent to Nashville. Coomer said the first barb aimed at him came five days after the election. He believes there is time to make real change before the 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. 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 and scanners. 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. This references the claim that supercomputer Hammer and software program Scorecard were used to change votes in Bidens favor in the 2020 Presidential election. 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. "I'm in fear for my family's safety. "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. Joe Bidens Brother in Law, Steven Owens, is the cofounder of Staple Street Execs along with William Kennard (mentioned above).. On Christmas morning of 2020, a recreational vehicle exploded on the streets of Nashville near a building owned by AT&T that lies one block from the companys office tower. Cerberus Capital did briefly own an AT&T building, but the post is wrong about which one. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. 4 min read. Heres more information on Facebooks fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536. "Bombing investigations can take years," Darrell DeBusk, an FBI spokesman based inTennessee, told The Tennessean. Some of Trump's supporters have focused on Coomer as the supposed evil mastermind. Spokespeople for both AT&T and Dominion told USA TODAY that AT&T was not contracted to audit Dominion voting machines, and no Dominion voting machines were being held in the AT&T building outside of which the RV exploded. 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 post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. 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. 2023 www.statesman.com. With unfounded fraud claims swirling, red California county dumps Dominion voting machines. "Thats an interesting coincidence.". 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. 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. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth. 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. Others are not so sure, and the state has set up an advisory committee. (Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images). Fact check: No, Joe Biden's brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems, Nashville police bodycam footage shows raw moments of chaos before and after explosion, Three firefighters hurt battling three-alarm blaze in Rochester, "Nashville bombing: What we know about downtown explosion on Christmas morning, FBI Memphis Special Agent in Charge Announces Identity of Remains Discovered in Nashville Explosion Site; Multi-Agency Investigation Continues, FBI identifies suspect in Nashville bombing, After devastating fire, City Blue Imaging looks toward future. On Dec. 27, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran said the explosion appeared to be a suicide bombing carried out by a Warner. "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.. And thats not what were about. The bomber was lateridentified by U.S. Attorney Don Cochranas Anthony Warner, 63, according to The Tennessean. CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee to the same AT&T building that was damaged in a Christmas morning explosion. 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. The New York Attorney Generals office said they could not confirm nor deny any investigation. 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. Conspiracy theorists say the suicide bombing that rocked downtown Nashville was actually the result of a missile strike. Some have also received threatening letters. (Read more about ourpartnership with Facebook.). First, QAnon. There is no evidence to support the claim that City Blue Imaging, a longtime Rochester, New York, printing business that went up in flames on Christmas Eve, was under investigation for printing fake ballots. Donate State Editions California Florida But that is an overstatement, according to a team of 10 independent cybersecurity experts who specialize in voting systems and elections. Similar claims have already been debunked by Reuters (here). 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. One of the co-founders of Staple Street Capital (staplestreetcapital.com/ ), not Staple Street execs, Hootan Yaghoobzadeh, worked at Cerberus prior to starting Staple Street in 2009 (here). "Anthony Warner is the bomber. Much of the voting equipment was by Dominion. ", 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.". 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.. 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 the equipment was recently relocated to the companys building that was damaged in the blast. Spokespersons for both Dominion Voting Systems and AT&T told Reuters by email that claims that Dominion voting machines related to the election were held in the building were untrue. Copyright 2023 Politifact. Reuters Fact Check previously debunked this claim here . he instructions and videos shown here have been prepared by the manufacturers and are general in nature. 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. 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. "The minute I saw it, it left a big pit in my stomach," he said. 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. "Coincidence? The claim implies the explosion was an elaborate plot to destroy voting machines that might have yielded evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. Texas country-punk band Vandoliers are standing in solidarity with drag performers and the LGBTQ+ community. Please note t he instructions and videos shown here have been prepared by the manufacturers and are general in nature. "Some of the threats that I've gotten have made very clear that these actors are in it for the long haul. ES&S confirmed they had sold scanners with wireless modems to at least 11 states. The conspiracy theory has grown into a movement that is promoted by right-wing extremists. The investigation of the Nashville bombing is ongoing, but the Facebook post is inaccurate and ridiculous. 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.