What is Dominion, and have they been skewing election results?
Summary
President Trump Tweeted allegations yesterday that Dominion, a technology firm responsible for voting software in multiple states, had deleted votes for Trump in an effort to help Biden win the election.
- On Twitter yesterday, President Trump claimed that Dominion had “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide” and switched Trump ballots to Biden ballots in key swing states including Pennsylvania.
- The Tweet was posted shortly after a broadcast from right-wing One America News Network which made the same claims. That report has since been removed.
- In a post on Wednesday, Trump replied to a tweet that asked, “What do we know about dominion?” with the response, “It attempted to alter our election and got caught?!”
- Dominion denied “claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems.” The Hill reports that Dominion has a history of carefully and successfully implementing free and fair vote counts, and that there is no reason to believe that the software is fraudulent or corrupt.
- In a statement to the Associated Press, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees election security, said that there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
- A vote-counting error was reported in Michigan last week, but the Associated Press reports that it was the result of human error and not vote counting software.
- Although it seems like Trump’s claims of glitchy voting software are unfounded, the Tweet sparked widespread debate and fueled ongoing suspicion of a rigged presidential election in the United States.
- Regards the entire ordeal as a wild goose chase. The New York Times reports that all of President Trump’s claims have been directly contradicted by officials who worked at the polls. CNN, Newsweek, Insider, and Independent all shared similar stories, using strong language to condemn Trump’s claim as completely unfounded and ridiculous.
- Provides hard evidence of Trump’s baseless claims. The New York Times did an in-depth, county-by-county investigation of vote counts, and found that in the few cases of inaccurate vote counts, human error was to blame.
- Connects Trump’s voter fraud claims with a larger threat to democracy in the United States. CNN writes that Trump’s attempt to spread “conspiracy theories” is further polarizing the already divided partisan U.S. in a dangerous way.
- Acknowledges that President Trump’s claims are not rooted in empirical evidence. Daily Caller and The Blaze set the record straight regarding Trump’s tweets, writing that Trump’s claims originated from an unsubstantiated report in OAN which was in turn based on unsubstantiated claims on online pro-Trump blogs and forums.
- Reports heavily on other instances of election inconsistency, like the Michigan incident. Fox News and Daily Wire published articles this morning which plays up GOP concerns of ongoing voter fraud in Michigan.
- Remains optimistic about a Trump win. The Washington Examiner amplified an interview with White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro in which he claimed that the White House is “operating on the assumption” that Trump will serve a second term in office.
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© Evelyn Torsher, 2020
