DENVER — A company that has been named in numerous election fraud theories - many with little or no evidence to back them - has taken aim at comments from one of its biggest detractors.
Dominion Voting Systems, which maintains voting machines in Georgia and other states, laid out a long list of claims by attorney Sidney Powell which it said are false - and provably so.
The company described many of Powell's statements as part of a "bizarre election fraud conspiracy" that would have required unreasonably coordinated actions between thousands of people from the state to the local level - including themselves.
"This quite simply did not occur," the company said in a statement released on Thursday.
"The allegations included in the draft complaint are baseless, senseless, physically impossible, and unsupported by any evidence whatsoever," Dominion said while acknowledging the company wasn't named in the suit. "We stand with the state and local elected officials and bipartisan election volunteers that this suit maliciously maligns."
Several unfounded theories have arisen in recent weeks following the U.S. election with a particularly strong focus on Georgia. The state's votes were certified a week earlier for President-elect Joe Biden. The narrow victory shifts Georgia's electoral votes to a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in decades, with some claiming that's a sign that the votes were tampered with.
However, Dominion's comments on Thursday strongly push back against those claims - particularly allegations that systems were hacked, votes were changed or that voting information was handled on servers in another country.
"It is important to understand that this is not possible—not on a machine-by-machine basis, not by alleged hacking, not by manipulating software, and not by imagined ways of "sending" votes to overseas locations," the company said.
Even if it were, however, the company suggests that the statewide recount would have discovered the issue.
"Dominion's systems are secure as certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC)," the company writes. "In fact, all voting systems must provide assurance that they work accurately and reliably as intended under federal U.S. EAC and state certification and testing requirements."
In the lengthy response to Powell, Dominion also provides bullet-pointed responses to individual claims she allegedly makes, calling them "nonsensical and unsupported by any presentation of evidence."
The company listed response states:
- Dominion was not "founded by oligarchs and dictators." It was founded in Toronto, Canada, and it is now a proud nonpartisan American company. Dominion has attested to its ownership—under penalty of perjury—to local, state, and federal agencies, including the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which includes all U.S. national security agencies.
- Dominion is not, and never has been, owned by Smartmatic. Neither has Smartmatic ever been a subsidiary of Dominion, as the complaint asserts. Dominion is an entirely separate company—they do not collaborate in any way and have no affiliate relationships or financial ties. Dominion does not use Smartmatic. These are all facts verifiable in the public record as well as in regulatory and legal filings.
- Dominion has no ties to the Venezuelan government, nor any other foreign government, including China and Iran. Dominion has never participated in any elections in Venezuela and has no connection or relationship with the now deceased former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Other companies have serviced elections in Venezuela, but Dominion is not one of them.
- Dominion does not have operations in Germany including an "Office of the General Counsel."
- Dominion Voting Systems are in fact auditable—and are audited and tested regularly by multiple government agencies and independent third parties. All electronic devices used in the U.S. must be designed to be audited.
- Dominion's system does in fact include a paper ballot backup to verify results. In fact, thousands of elections officials in Georgia just completed the largest vote recount in American history using the paper ballots produced by Dominion devices.
- Dominion's system cannot be manipulated by a technician in the way Powell alleges. This has been confirmed by the government agencies that have certified Dominion equipment.
- Despite repeated counts and audits, there is no evidence of any kind that any voting system deleted, lost, or changed votes in Georgia, or in any of the other 28 states that use Dominion devices. Certifications and audits have instead shown the accuracy, transparency, and reliability of Dominion's systems.
- The federal government agency that oversees U.S. election security verified that there is no evidence that this election was in any way compromised. In fact, they have called it the most secure election in American history.
- Servers that run Dominion software are located in local election offices, and data never leaves the control of local election officials.
- There were no "glitches" with Dominion's voting systems, and no unauthorized or last-minute software updates occurred.
- There were no "data breaches" of Dominion software by anyone, let alone rogue foreign actors.
- Human errors did occur in some counties but were resolved quickly by county officials before the canvass process.
- Votes are not processed outside the United States. Votes are counted and reported by county and state election officials—not by Dominion, or any other election technology company.
- Election safeguards—from testing and certification of voting systems to canvassing and auditing—prevent malicious actors from tampering with results.
The response from Dominion comes roughly a week after the Trump Campaign began distancing itself from Powell, who it said "is not a member of the Trump Legal Team" and "not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity."
The letter was attributed to the president's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Trump Campaign senior legal adviser and attorney Jenna Ellis. The Associated Press suggests the move follows multiple incorrect statements about the voting process and complex conspiracy theories about Georgia elections.