Undefined Method `use_flipper!',
Articles D
AT&T did not have a contract to audit Dominion machines and was not holding Dominion machines in its Nashville building, both companies confirmed to The Associated Press. Statement:The Nashville bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. That team of election security experts say that last summer, they discovered some systems are, in fact, online. 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 extent of our relationship is this: In 2009, Smartmatic licensed the use of a Dominion voting machine for use in the Philippines. A Dec. 14 Facebook video, viewed more than 23,000 times, claimed in its caption that "Trump WON The Election NEW Evidence Shows" because "a forensics report done on Dominion voting machines . Thank you for supporting our journalism. It's the first . Some posts have said the Nashville explosion was caused by a missile. Some of the posts (here) say: Dominion voting is owned by Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus is run by Staple Street Execs. Nashville's date on June 7 at GEODIS Park will feature Kelsea Ballerini and BRELAND -- and now, The Boykinz. 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. That user did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment, either. Texas country-punk band Vandoliers are standing in solidarity with drag performers and the LGBTQ+ community. Posts include debunked conspiracy claims attempting to tie the Nashville explosion Dominion voting systems. Trump has repeatedly made comments about Dominion's voting machines and retweeted reports perpetuating the conspiracy theory, calling the company's voting machines "a disaster all over the . 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. Read more about our fact-checking workhere . 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. 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. Our mission is to exceed the expectations of our customers, the taxpayers, by operating at the highest levels of accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and accountability in a customer-centered environment. 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. Jim Greer, associate vice president for corporate communications at AT&T, was blunt in an email response to PolitiFact: "That is not true," he wrote. In . The conspiracy theory has grown into a movement that is promoted by right-wing extremists. Owens, the other co-founder of Staple Street Capital,did not work for Cerberus, despite the post's claim. More on Dominion:Fact check: Viral photo shows fake logo and slogan for Dominion Voting Systems. 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. This screengrab is being shared on social media without that context. Some of Trump's supporters have focused on Coomer as the supposed evil mastermind. According to the post, that firm ownedthe AT&T building outside of which the Christmas bombing occurred. There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. Read more about our fact-checking work here . 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. There are currently two voting systems which are certified by the State of Florida's Division of Elections. Hart said that it has approximately 1,600 such tabulators in use in 11 counties in Michigan. 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. Some just say AT&T had a contract to conduct a forensic audit on Dominion Voting Systems. IE 11 is not supported. These claims are groundless. As of Friday, a motive in the bombing remained under investigation by the FBI, the ATF and Metro Nashville police. ", 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.". Next theory: The bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. Jake Rollow, director of communications for the Michigan Department of State, said in a statement to NBC News, Even though the results are unofficial, if these unofficial results were disrupted or manipulated, it could still cause confusion on Election Day., "The department will consider the advisory commissions recommendations to improve the security of the process," Rollow continued. New York State Police Director of Public Information Beau Duffy told Reuters via email they were unaware of any state police investigations relating to the claims linking the paper company to ballots. The voting rights of more than 55,000 formerly incarcerated Minnesotans were restored on Friday, as Gov. Federal officials have identified the man believed to be behind the bombing, and they are working to discern a motive. (Read more about, Breaking news meme generators are frequently used online to create fabricated headlines and chyrons such as this one. 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. 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. But Skogland points to some good news. Some of that money was spent on tabulators with wireless modems. But none of this is true. Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. provides voting machines and tabulators. The bulletin circulated among state election officials earlier this week and publicly shared online, Friday marks the first time CISA has used its vulnerability disclosure program to probe . While William Kennard serves on Staple Street Capitals board, he is not one of the companys co-founders as these posts claim (here). A public relations firmtold the Associated Presson behalf of Dominion that the company "has no connection to AT&T, the building, Nashville, family members of the Bidens or the Clintons, and Staple Street is not owned by Cerberus. We should not connect our voting machines directly to the computer networks. 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. Reuters Fact Check previously debunked this claim here . 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. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Coomer said the first barb aimed at him came five days after the election. 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. 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. "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. Shasta County has become a hotbed for unproven conspiracy theories about rigged voting, fueled by former . . Note that aspects of Tennessee law may differ with what is seen on the videos. 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 . The report claims the results of the election in . 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. The coalition says it is no longer certain that the number of states is correct, so the figure has been removed from the article. 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. These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth.. And so we set out to try and find the voting machines to see if we could find them on the internet, and especially the back-end systems that voting machines in the precinct were connecting to to report their results.. Across the country on Christmas Eve, a printing press company in New York burned to the ground. ", More:Nashville police bodycam footage shows raw moments of chaos before and after explosion. No available external evidence suggests AT&T was involved in any such audit, either. 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. Similar claims have been shared in hundreds of public posts, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. This references the claim that supercomputer Hammer and software program Scorecard were used to change votes in Bidens favor in the 2020 Presidential election. Dominion was the first to snap. Heres more information on Facebooks fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536. AT&T not conducting voting machine audit near Nashville explosion site. An executive for a voting machine company that has been the target of conspiracy theories in the aftermath of Donald Trump's 2020 election loss and been baselessly accused of swinging the. Dominionwas acquired by private equity firm Staple Street Capital, co-founded by financiers Hootan Yaghoobzadeh and StephenOwens, in 2018. 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.". He also serves on 16 boards and commissions, on two of which he is the presiding member. The Company offers voting systems and scanning devices, as well as resource planning, training management, quality control . Rating: False About this rating On Christmas. Speaker 13 . Since the 2016 election, Michigan authorized $82 million dollars to upgrade its election systems. A post on Facebook theorized that the two disasters were connected by a plot to steal the election. This conspiracy theory has been debunked by various experts as reported by Reuters here and other fact checkers including Snopes, Factcheck.org and PolitiFact here , here and here . 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. On Monday, The Associated Press debunked claims that Dominion has any connection with AT&T. Dominion was founded in the wake of a different controversy: the failure of punch-card voting machines and their infamous hanging chads in the 2000 election. 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. Previous claims had said the bomb had targeted the AT&T building and that Dominion Voting Systems machines were being audited there(here). No one is currently working out of the building. Both companies have denied the posts claims, saying that there was no such audit and that Dominions machines were not recently transported to Nashville. "Very, very interesting.". ", Dominion Voting Systems Employee Sues Trump Campaign And Allies, Alleging Defamation, Former Election Security Official Says It Will Take Years To Undo Disinformation, Barr Says No Need For Special Counsel For Hunter Biden Probe, Election Fraud Claims. Some users seemed to recognize the story as fake, but others didnt. why?" Owners of Dominion Voting Systems,(the company many people are accusing of voter fraud) are former executives from Cerebus," another post reads. Examples can be seen here , here and here . Staple Street Capital has a managing director and co-founder named Stephen Owens. The Christmas morning bomb went off on Second Avenue, outside an AT&T transmission building. The posts all tie AT&T with Dominion, holding the explosion to be alleged proof of conspiracy. Skoglund said that they identified only one company among the systems they detected on line, ES&S. And we knew that wasn't true. Were focusing on moving forward.. False. On Nov. 21, a group protested in front of Dominion's Denver headquarters, waving American flags and signs saying "fraud equals arrests." 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. While lawmakers questioned them about foreign influence in their supply chains and whether they would comply with more federal reporting requirements, the presence of modems in some of their tabulators was mentioned but not pursued. So we will clear it up: Its fake. Both sit on Dominion's board. The conservative network has seen its ratings surge in . US Elections were November 3, 2020. All rights reserved. "You may want to read a book some day to learn about my reference to rising like a #phoenix. He is focused on New Technologies around AI led Predictive Analytics, Smart Machines, IT Process Automation etc.. through . Both companies have denied the posts claims, saying that there was no such audit and that Dominions machines were not recently transported to Nashville. "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. The post provides no links to evidence for their allegations. Secretary Hargett is the chief executive officer of the Department of State with oversight of more than 300 employees. The AT&T building in downtown Nashville. 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. Some have also received threatening letters. The 35 systems Skoglunds team found represent a fraction of total voting systems nationwide, though he believes they only captured a portion of the systems that are or have been online. No amount of transparency at the county and state level can really combat the sort of megaphone that Trump wields, Kiniry says. Now, the alleged Dominion Voting Systems tie. "Thats an interesting coincidence.". 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. The row housed Simply the Best $10 Boutique at 176 (here), Ensemble boutique at 174 (www.ensemblenashville.com/) and the Pride & Glory Tattoo Parlor at 172 (www.prideandglorytattoo.com/), as well as apartments on the upper floors (here). 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. Some posts take the claim a step further, alleging that the former owner of the building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. NBC News asked the two other major manufacturers how many of their tabulators with modems were currently in use. 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. 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. That agreement is long over, and they no longer have the . 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. The New York Attorney Generals office said they could not confirm nor deny any investigation. Some posts take the claim a step further, alleging that the former owner of the building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. Full Story. The user who created the post did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment. Its crazy, the amount of misinformation that you see, Mealy said. 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. . Claims that two buildings that were destroyed on Christmas Day were both holding evidence related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election are untrue. Smartmatic, a competitor of Dominion's that has also been the subject of wild rumors, has demanded that numerous news networks take back their allegations against it. It really is. The West Bend clerk wrote, "The wrong marking device was used to mark the . First, QAnon. On Dec. 27, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran said the explosion appeared to be a suicide bombing carried out by a Warner. 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. 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. "Anthony Warner is the bomber. The bomb squad was en route. Breitbart, by Hannah Bleau Original Article. 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. This weekend, both Fox Business Network and Newsmax appeared to answer those demands with segments debunking some claims. 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.. There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. 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. That building is located at 333 Commerce St., roughly a quarter mile from where the bomb went off. 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. 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? read another post. The accusation started with a conservative activist in Colorado, Joe Oltmann. The wishes are that I forever have to look over my shoulder," Coomer said. 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. "When we're in the realm of coupling disinformation from both foreign and domestic sources, and government and nongovernment sources, and none of it is really grounded in reality evidence doesn't help much," he said. Kevin Monahan is a producer for the NBC News Investigative Unit. Others add that the explosion took place as the voting machines were being moved to Nashville and provide political links as proof of a conspiracy. . That's false. Some on social media have speculated that AT&T was contracted to audit Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology supplier that has become central to false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. 2023 Tennessee Secretaryof State |Web and Social Media Policies. Conspiracy theorists say the suicide bombing that rocked downtown Nashville was actually the result of a missile strike. Immediately, Coomer knew things would blow up. Both Dominion Voting Systems andAT&T confirmed the communications company was not contracted to audit Dominion's machines.