Fact Check: Explaining the False Allegations About Dominion Voting Systems

The vote-counting software has been the subject of conspiracy theories about Democrats ‘stealing the election.’

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Sidney Powell, a member of President Trump’s legal team currently contesting election results across the country, alleged that Democrats were stealing the election from Trump by manipulating Dominion Voting Systems, vote-counting software used in many states. The charge came during an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.

Powell alleged that the Democratic Party “had the algorithm, they had the paper ballots waiting to be inserted if and when needed. And notably President Trump’s vote in the blue states went up enormously and that’s when they had to stop the vote count and go in and replace votes for Biden and take away Trump votes.” 

Powell did not offer up any evidence to support these claims.

Many of the claims about Dominion can be traced to its alleged role in vote-counting errors in Antrim County, Michigan, and several counties in Georgia. Antrim County revealed it had inadvertently misreported a number of votes in unofficial results, with state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox claiming that the error was due to “tabulating software glitched and caused a miscalculation of the votes.” However, Michigan’s secretary of state announced that it was not a software issue, but “user human error” that led to the misreporting, and clarified that “the correct results always were and continue to be reflected on the tabulator totals tape and on the ballots themselves. Even if the error in the reported unofficial results had not been quickly noticed, it would have been identified during the county canvass.”

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Comments (15)
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  1. Avatar photo
    BWG

    Thanks much for your fact checking. I'm sure you're getting pretty exhausted by it all. I am.

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  2. Gina M. Danaher

    The Dispatch is going to have to do better if they want to convince me that what they have posted above is sufficient to alleviate concerns about ballot tampering. I'm from Chicago and this little ditty is inadequate.

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    1. downhillfromhere

      Exactly right. These fact checks are much needed and much appreciated. But they seem predisposed and to adopt anti-Trump standard lines that amount to “nothing to see here, move along”. This overlooks serious irregularities that all citizens should want explained and eliminated. We should refuse the false binary choice that the election results are perfect, just fine, or they result from a vast conspiracy. There is a lot of wrong, undemocratic, unwanted space between these two poles. Mistakes, irregularities, and the faulty processes must be explained and corrected for the integrity of our votes.

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  3. harlan@korenvaes.com

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=dh1X4s9HuLo

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  4. Avatar photo
    Xsearnold

    It's good to see that Sidney Powell is hard at work earning the money Trump is paying him. Reminds me of that other pillar of virtue, Michael Cohen.

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    1. Avatar photo
      BWG

      What's amazing is that Sidney Powell seems to believe all the conspiracy fecal matter she's spewing. (And btw, she's a woman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Powell)

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    2. Avatar photo
      Dpatricola

      Something has to pay for that second beachfront property.

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  5. Jennifer Woods

    President Trump just tweeted that Dominion "deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide." I am very confused as to why this story keeps getting escalated. Is it completely false, or has there been newly discovered evidence?

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    1. Daniel

      Just more bullshit from the president.

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    2. Matt C

      It is completely false. If you calculate the Pennsylvania results according to his ludicrous claim, that would mean PA actually went more for Trump than very red states like Indiana, Kansas, and Missouri. That alone should make it clear it is false, and also tell you about the veracity of all of his other claims.

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  6. Avatar photo
    The Stray Goose

    I remain gobsmacked that we can put a man on the moon (or a classified sound stage in Arizona), but we can't count freekin' votes w/o 'software crashes'. Yagottabekiddingme.

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    1. Raincheck

      We also had tragic disasters in the Apollo program.

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      1. Avatar photo
        The Stray Goose

        It was just a joke.

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  7. Avatar photo
    dmklever

    Thanks for the hard work here.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Miriam Tucker

    I can't tell you how valuable your reporting is to me right now. Thank you.

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