dominion voting machines nashville dominion voting machines nashville

(Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images). 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. Early Christmas morning, police in Nashville came across an RV parked on Second Avenue, outside an AT&T transmission building, whileresponding to reports of shots fired in the area, Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron told The Tennessean that day. Now the process of counting these votes . . In August 2021, Dominion Voting Systems programmed machines for the county's upcoming elections. Social media is home to several conspiracy theories about the explosion in Nashville on Christmas Day. In the weeks following the election, the election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems has been the target of baseless allegations of election fraud, according to the Washington Post.Now a viral Facebook post attempts to connect President-elect Joe Biden to the company by claiming his sister is married to Stephen Owens, who, the post alleges, owns Dominion Voting Systems. The conspiracy theory appears to have originated in a tweet by Lin Wood, an attorney and Trump supporter, who has pushed a number of false election claims. "What we should do is remove all of the unnecessary, hackable pathways, such as modems. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. 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. "Anthony Warner is the bomber. The voting rights of more than 55,000 formerly incarcerated Minnesotans were restored on Friday, as Gov. But companies that specialize in the subject said it is getting exponentially worse. A Michigan judge ordered the release Monday of an independent forensic audit report of the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Antrim County, which flipped from a win for Democrat Joe Biden to President Donald Trump after a glitch was discovered and corrected. "You may want to read a book some day to learn about my reference to rising like a #phoenix. The post implies that the bombing was an attempt to stop the audit and cover up voter fraud. A Dominion spokeswoman said other company employees have also gone to more secure locations, been threatened and been digitally stalked. Rumors about an investigation into the company do not even appear in web searches until after the fire. Read more about our fact-checking workhere . Secretary Hargett is the chief executive officer of the Department of State with oversight of more than 300 employees. "The specific steps taken would depend on the recommendation and the timeline required to make changes effectively.. Posts include debunked conspiracy claims attempting to tie the Nashville explosion Dominion voting systems. 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. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. Its crazy, the amount of misinformation that you see, Mealy said. NBC News asked the two other major manufacturers how many of their tabulators with modems were currently in use. Both Dominion Voting Systems andAT&T confirmed the communications company was not contracted to audit Dominion's machines. 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. Both companies have denied the posts claims, saying that there was no such audit and that Dominions machines were not recently transported to Nashville. It also claims the AT&T building that was affected by the bomb is where those machines were being stored. Owens, the other co-founder of Staple Street Capital,did not work for Cerberus, despite the post's claim. 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 . All those. It's the first . Similar claims have already been debunked by Reuters (here). So that unofficial election results can more quickly be relayed to the public. AT&T does not hold a contract to audit Dominions software or machines and did not have any of the companys equipment in its Nashville building. 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,. There are currently two voting systems which are certified by the State of Florida's Division of Elections. No available external evidence suggests AT&T was involved in any such audit, either. causing widespread communications outages. There is no evidence that the New York printing company whose building burnt down on Christmas Day was under investigation for printing false ballots. 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). 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 . This screengrab is being shared on social media without that context. "And I probably will. 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 ). Coomer oversees product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, the Denver-based company that has suddenly found itself at the center of many of President Trump's false claims about November's election, spread by allies and pro-Trump media. The FBI confirmed that a man named Anthony Warner was responsible for the bombing and was killed in the blast. First, QAnon. 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. 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 . 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. Some posts have said the Nashville explosion was caused by a missile. 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). This weekend, both Fox Business Network and Newsmax appeared to answer those demands with segments debunking some claims. Voting Systems in Tennessee | Tennessee Secretary of State Proposed Constitutional Amendments Voting Systems in Tennessee View list by county (.pdf) and learn more about each system using the links below. "God is at the wheel, but we are the warriors that must do the work of men to repel evil," said one of numerous posts on the conservative social media site Parler. "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.. "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. 27 post says. The Nashville outlet found . He has independently become part of the broader Dominion conspiracy theories, though, with some claiming he's Joe Biden's brother-in-law. On Tuesday, Coomer sued the Trump campaign and a number of allies, alleging defamation. 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. Shasta County has become a hotbed for unproven conspiracy theories about rigged voting, fueled by former . It was an assurance designed to bolster public confidence in the way America votes: Voting machines are not connected to the internet.. Jim Greer, Assistant Vice President of Corporate Communications at AT&T, told Reuters via email: None of the things in the post are true.. AT&T not conducting voting machine audit near Nashville explosion site. 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. While William Kennard serves on Staple Street Capitals board, he is not one of the companys co-founders as these posts claim (here). More:Fact check: Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims. We rate thisclaim as FALSE, because it wasn't supported by our research. We found over 35 [voting systems] had been left online and were still continuing to find more, Kevin Skoglund, a senior technical advisor at the election security advocacy group National Election Defense Coalition, told NBC News. The explosion injured three other people and damaged businesses in downtown Nashville, including an AT&T switching center, which resulted in widespread communications outages. AT&T does not hold a contract to audit Dominions software or machines and did not have any of the companys equipment in its Nashville building. Even though it has a blue Nashville and a blue Memphis. 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. Didi Martinez is an associate producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit. There is a bomb. Bogus conspiracy theory spreading online claims the Nashville bombing was an attempt to cover up voter fraud. for the blast that rattled downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, social media users have invented their own far-fetched theories. Next theory: The bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. Once a hacker starts talking to the voting machine through the modem, the hacker cannot just change these unofficial election results, they can hack the software in the voting machine and make it cheat in future elections, he said. 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. "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?,"onefrom Dec. 26 reads. Some of that money was spent on tabulators with wireless modems. Skoglund said that they identified only one company among the systems they detected on line, ES&S. One theory shared thousands of times on Facebook over the weekend tries to connect the explosion to voting machines used in the Nov. 3 election. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Jim Greer, a spokesperson for AT&T, told USA TODAY the claims are "not true. 2023 www.statesman.com. Much of the voting equipment was by Dominion. 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. The coalition says it is no longer certain that the number of states is correct, so the figure has been removed from the article. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Let's start here: The man behind the Dec. 25 bombing in downtown Nashville, Tenn., died of COVID-19, according to a popular and wrong Facebook post. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. ", More:Nashville police bodycam footage shows raw moments of chaos before and after explosion. The Poynter Institute Menu. The wishes are that I forever have to look over my shoulder," Coomer said. 2023 Tennessee Secretaryof State |Web and Social Media Policies. The bomb squad was en route. 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 printing business took to social media to debunk the claim itself. 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. 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. But to draw that connection, a number of other groups are brought into the fold and it doesn't add up. In an interview with Rochester's ABC 13, City Blue Imagingsales manager John Mealy condemned misinformation about the tragedy and dismissed the claims again. Thats an interesting coincidence., Some posts read: 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. Last week, Dominion filed its fourth defamation lawsuit, this one a $1.6 billion whopper charging that Fox News spread the bogus conspiracy claim in order to boost ratings that plummeted after. 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. More on Dominion:Fact check: Viral photo shows fake logo and slogan for Dominion Voting Systems. 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. Breitbart, by Hannah Bleau Original Article. Coomer oversees product strategy and security for Dominion Voting Systems, the Denver-based company that has suddenly found itself at the center of many of President Trump's false claims about. The company put the building back on the market shortly thereafter; MetLife Inc., throughsubsidiary Prefco Fourteen, now owns the building, public records show. While federal investigators are still looking into the bombing, law enforcement officials have said Warner was responsible and died in the blast. Thats an interesting coincidence.. Generally speaking, the media in those locations are kinda clamoring to get unofficial results as quickly as possible., When asked if the desire for speed was at odds with accuracy and security, Burt said, its not my place to judge that.. APS ASSESSMENT: False. We should be unplugging all of these machines from the internet, Skoglund said. The Company offers voting systems and scanning devices, as well as resource planning, training management, quality control . John Bazemore/AP ", Both Snopes and AFP reached the same conclusion. 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 ). In 2020, the controversy revolves around Dominion's voting machines, sparked by an erroneous result out of a Michigan county that's been blamed on human error, allegations of rigged Dominion software in Georgia and the fact Texas rejected Dominion's system due to security concerns. The ATT building in Nashville that was affected by the bomb was owned by Cerebus (sic) Capital. The video, which was posted by a Facebook page called Red Pill Radio on Dec. 28, shows the outline of buildings and a highway in Nashville. Dominion was the first to snap. Did AT&T Have a Contract to Audit Dominion Voting Systems? 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. In . All rights reserved. The machines America votes on seem to be capturing the interest of some in Congress. Theres a small percentage of jurisdictions in the country -- a lot of them are in Florida -- who have decided they want to modem unofficial results to the election office, he said. The post displays a headline from a fabricated story by the Genesius Times, a satirical news website, that reads: "BREAKING: Nashville Bomber died from COVID-19 shortly after blowing himself up. Dominion did not respond to numerous requests from NBC News for their sales numbers. A Dominion voting machine in Georgia. He is focused on New Technologies around AI led Predictive Analytics, Smart Machines, IT Process Automation etc.. through . That agreement is long over, and they no longer have the . Videos from law enforcement officials and local businesses show that the explosion occurred on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville. The Trump followers believe that the explosion was actually a missile strike aimed at destroying. No amount of transparency at the county and state level can really combat the sort of megaphone that Trump wields, Kiniry says. 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. These are real, tangible things coming out of these baseless accusations.". The following three posts were flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. "Fuck a drag bill," they wrote in an Instagram post. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has dismissed the claim of an election hacking and vote manipulation operation known as Hammer and Scorecard. (here). 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. Dominion has been the target of a wide range of false posts since American voters chose Joe Biden as their next president, despite no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election. So did the type of explosives used to detonate the blast. 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. 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. Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos is not ruling out legal action against President Trump, whose surrogates have spent nearly two months alleging the Nov. 3 election, which Trump lost, may . These claims are groundless. An online search turns up segments on the pro-Trump outlets Newsmax and One America News Network discussing the allegations as well as people accusing Coomer of treason and calling for him to be publicly executed. "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.. He claimed on his podcast that he'd infiltrated a call with Denver-area antifa members that included a man identified as "Eric from Dominion.". Select an Infowars smear of Dominion Voting Systems. 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? But none of this is true. There was no evidence of a shooting, but both officers and witnesses heard a warning blare from the RV: "Evacuate now. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Reuters found no evidence that Cerberus Capital Management (www.cerberus.com/) owns Dominion. But he has no idea if that will ever be possible. The post also mentions the Kraken or supercomputer and says that the cooling system for this computer was located in the AT&T building. 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. False. That building is located at 333 Commerce St., roughly a quarter mile from where the bomb went off. 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. Now, the alleged Dominion Voting Systems tie. The question is.. 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. Reuters Fact Check previously debunked this claim here . Earlier this week, Skoglund showed NBC three election systems were still online even after officials had been told they were vulnerable. In counties that used Dominion systems, Biden got 888,259 votes to Trump's 851,069. The explosion injured three people and damaged several businesses, including the AT&T Building. The accusation started with a conservative activist in Colorado, Joe Oltmann. Sumit Ganguli is the CEO and Member of the Board at GAVS Technologies. 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. With the 2020 presidential election only ten months away, Appel and Skoglund believe all modems can and should be removed from election systems. So many government officials like Manfra have said the same thing over the last few years that it is commonly accepted as gospel by most Americans. You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Heres more information on Facebooks fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536. Reuters debunked this claim here . "Conspiracy theory links false claim of AT&T election audit to bombing, Fact check: Hugo Chvez's family does not own Dominion Voting Systems, Fact check: Dominion voting machines didn't delete votes from Trump, switch them to Biden, Live politics updates: Dominion says it may sue over election conspiracy theories, subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy, Cision PR Newswire archive, July 16, 2018, ", The Tennessean archives, July 23, 2004, ", News Channel 5 Nashville archives, Dec. 18, 2006, ", Email correspondence withJim Greer, a spokesperson for AT&T, Email correspondence with a spokesperson for Dominion Voting Systems. 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. In a letter obtained by NBC News sent to the EAC on Tuesday, the nonprofit public interest group Free Speech for People and the National Election Defense Coalition asked the agency to look into whether ES&S violated agency regulations by implying that DS200 voting machines with modems are EAC certified. Since the 2016 election, Michigan authorized $82 million dollars to upgrade its election systems. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. https://archive.is/qqjBh Paul E. Singer-Elliott Management, aka "The Vulture", reportedly controls CNN parent, AT&T, as well as Twitter. A spokesperson for the FBI's Denver Field Office confirmed that the FBI executed the . Some of the posts (here) say: Dominion voting is owned by Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus is run by Staple Street Execs. There is no evidence to support the claim that the Nashville bombing or City Blue Imaging's fire were connected to election malfeasance, so we rate this claim FALSE. The conservative network has seen its ratings surge in . 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. For election systems to be online, even momentarily, presents a serious problem, according to Appel. These two tech experts also agree on the path forward, saying they are comforted by the fact that most Americans will vote this year on hand-marked paper ballots which are counted by machine and can be recounted by hand if the situation warrants. Dominion Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software. More:Neighbor recalls warning, countdown before Nashville explosion. Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, which sells electronic voting hardware and software, is suing both Fox News Network and parent company Fox Corp. for defamation. "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. ES&S confirmed they had sold scanners with wireless modems to at least 11 states. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. Donate State Editions California Florida In a Dominion-themed segment, an Infowars host speaking during a November Washington, D.C., rally presaged the January 6 violence by hyping the . NBC News reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which declined to comment on the topic of modem security in voting machine tabulators and scanners. "It does appear that the intent was more destruction than death," said David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, inan interview on NBC's "Today." why?" Those modems that ES&S [and other manufacturers] are putting in their voting machines are network connections, and that leaves them vulnerable to hacking by anybody who can connect to that network.. Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. provides voting machines and tabulators. Some just say AT&T had a contract to conduct a forensic audit on Dominion Voting Systems. A post on Facebook theorized that the two disasters were connected by a plot to steal the election. As of now, the person of interest identified by the FBI in connection with the explosion, Anthony Quinn Warner, is believed to have been "paranoid about 5G technology" (another frequent subject of conspiracy theories) rather than possessing any election-related motive.