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. 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. 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.". Thank you for supporting our journalism. A post on Facebook theorized that the two disasters were connected by a plot to steal the election. Speaker 13 . You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. The electronic voting system company accused the television network of spreading lies that Dominion machines were used to rig the 2020 election against Donald Trump. The West Bend clerk wrote, "The wrong marking device was used to mark the . Spokespersons for both Dominion Voting Systems and AT&T told Reuters by email that claims that Dominion voting machines related to the election were held in the building were untrue. 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 ). The post implies that the bombing was an attempt to stop the audit and cover up voter fraud. Behind it is the notion that if voting systems are not online, hackers will have a harder time compromising them. Bogus conspiracy theory spreading online claims the Nashville bombing was an attempt to cover up voter fraud. 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.. "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." The conspiracy theory has grown into a movement that is promoted by right-wing extremists. With the 2020 presidential election only ten months away, Appel and Skoglund believe all modems can and should be removed from election systems. "And I probably will. 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. 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. We rate thisclaim as FALSE, because it wasn't supported by our research. Sumit Ganguli is the CEO and Member of the Board at GAVS Technologies. In a Dominion-themed segment, an Infowars host speaking during a November Washington, D.C., rally presaged the January 6 violence by hyping the . The Christmas morning bomb went off on Second Avenue, outside an AT&T transmission building. Reuters found no evidence that Cerberus Capital Management (www.cerberus.com/) owns Dominion. CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved . reads the post caption from Red Pill Radio, a Facebook account that bears the slogan of the, However, the firm cited in that version of the claim Cerberus Capital Management doesnt own Dominion nor is it connected to Staple Street Capital, which, PolitiFact's partnership with Facebook here, Our ethics policy for PolitiFact journalists, WRAL partners with PolitiFact NC to fact check political stories. Heres more information on Facebooks fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536, Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. A newly-released court filing in the Dominion voting machines defamation lawsuit . "Thats an interesting coincidence.". New warnings of hacking risks for voting systems connected to the internet, New questions about voting machines as 2020 election approaches, Oregon officials say vote-by-mail system improves security and turnout, Manufacturers who make voting machines testify before Congress. Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. 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. The printing business took to social media to debunk the claim itself. 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. 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. Full Story. 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. the dominion voting system that was the subject of an enormous amount of controversy, is a dramatic improvement over prior forms of voting. NewsGuard, which vets news sources based on transparency and reliability standards, found recently that among the top 100 sources of news in the U.S., sources it deemed unreliable had four times as many interactions this year compared with 2019. "I actually am in fear for my safety," Coomer said recently, speaking by video call from an undisclosed location to Colorado Public Radio. 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. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. On Christmas Day, an RV in Nashville, Tennessee, exploded, severelydamaging many of the buildings around it in the explosion. Did AT&T Have a Contract to Audit Dominion Voting Systems? These claims are groundless. Authorities still dont know the reason for the Christmas day bombing, but theres no evidence it was election related. 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.". It wasn't meant to kill people, but to destroy a building. Donate State Editions California Florida The conservative network has seen its ratings surge in . The post reads: In Nashville 2 days ago an RV pulled up to a building and over a loud speaker announced to clear the area..the RV then blew up taking half a building with it..oh, minor detail - inside that building were the Dominion voting machines being audited. 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 area of the explosion or were being audited in Nashville that day. But the company did not account for the new voting centers, so the Williamson County. You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. There can still be security holes that allow hackers to get into the phone network.. This material may not be reproduced without permission. 4 min read. "Thats an interesting coincidence.". 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. Staple Street Capital took part in a deal with management to acquire Dominion in 2018 (here and here). On Thursday night, the group performed their set at the Shed in Maryville, Tennessee, with all six of its members wearing dresses in protest of the state's newly enacted law on public drag performance. For Coomer, that means his life may be forever changed. Dominion Voting Systems, a company beset by dubious election fraud claims in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, said "human error" was to blame after machines in a Pennsylvania. "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?," one from Dec. 26 reads. Now the process of counting these votes . "Bombing investigations can take years," Darrell DeBusk, an FBI spokesman based inTennessee, told The Tennessean. The companys sales manager, John Mealey ( here , here ), also spoke about the rumor to local ABC affiliate WHAM-TV, saying: Its crazy, the amount of misinformation that you see.. Representatives for companies involved say there is no truth to the claims. AT&T had a contract to conduct a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems in Nashville just prior to a December 2020 explosion in that city. One of the largest voting machine suppliers in the U.S. Dominion Voting Systems sued Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who represented former President Donald Trump, after they . Much of the voting equipment was by Dominion. James Murphy, a spokesperson for MetLife, confirmed the company owns the building. And we knew that wasn't true. The following three posts were flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. 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. Its disgusting. View list by county(.pdf) and learn more about each system using the links below. Dominion is a company that supplies voting machines in more than two-dozen states, including Ohio. CNN didnt report that Anthony Warner, the person authorities have identified as the bomber, died from COVID-19. The wishes are that I forever have to look over my shoulder," Coomer said. 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). And then run the ballots through the machine a few times. Videos from law enforcement officials and local businesses show that the explosion occurred on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville. Staple Street Capital has a managing director and co-founder named Stephen Owens. 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. "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.. Nashville's date on June 7 at GEODIS Park will feature Kelsea Ballerini and BRELAND -- and now, The Boykinz. First, QAnon. Even for elections nights., Appel agreed. The explosion injured three other people and damaged businesses in downtown Nashville, including an AT&T switching center, which resulted in widespread communications outages. As of Friday, a motive in the bombing remained under investigation by the FBI, the ATF and Metro Nashville police. 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. ES&S confirmed they had sold scanners with wireless modems to at least 11 states. 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. 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. All rights reserved. Skoglund and his team developed a tool that scoured the internet to see if the central computers that program voting machines and run the entire election process at the precinct level were online. "Anthony Warner is the bomber. 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. In counties that didn't use Dominion systems, Biden got 1.54 million votes to Trump's 1.52 million. The same Facebook post also said Dominion voting machines were being audited in the AT&T building that was destroyed by a bomb in Nashville. "That's all still speculation at this point as we continue in our investigation with all of our partners. 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 . Shasta will be the first of 40 California counties that used Dominion in the November 2022 election to drop the voting system, Shasta County Clerk/Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen told the . 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). While the voting machines themselves are not designed to be online, the larger voting systems in many states end up there, putting the voting process at risk. He also serves on the boards of Ford Motor Company, MetLife and Duke Energy Corporation (here). These are real, tangible things coming out of these baseless accusations.". AT&T and Verizon and so on try and protect as best they can the security of their phone network from the rest of the internet, but its still part of the internet, Appel explained. Cerberus Capital did briefly own an AT&T building, but the post is wrong about which one. (Read more about, Breaking news meme generators are frequently used online to create fabricated headlines and chyrons such as this one. 2023 www.statesman.com. ", Below the headline is an image that looks like its a picture from a CNN broadcast, with chyron that announces the Nashville bomber "died from COVID.". He also serves on 16 boards and commissions, on two of which he is the presiding member. Whether it's the standard online trolls, voicemails that are left almost on a daily basis, being called a traitor to this country, I can't even begin to describe what effect this has had on my life," he said. Its true that an AT&T-owned building in Nashville was one of many buildings damaged in Fridays bombing, causing widespread communications outages. The post provides no links to evidence for their allegations. The media intelligence platform Zignal Labs, in an analysis performed at NPR's request, found that misinformation narratives related to vote-by-mail systems alone were mentioned across the media spectrum more than 40 million times since Election Day. 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. The investigation of the Nashville bombing is ongoing, but the Facebook post is inaccurate and ridiculous. 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 accusation started with a conservative activist in Colorado, Joe Oltmann. 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. Shortly afterwards, social media users began circulating variants of a conspiracy theory holding that AT&T had been engaged to undertake a "forensic audit of Dominion voting machines," the latter of which were frequent targets of false election fraud claims made by President Donald Trump and his supports after Trump lost his re-election bid in November 2020: The implication of the conspiracy theory was that the explosion had been intended to destroy the machines before they were audited in order to cover up evidence of massive voting fraud. TheBatman-shaped skyscraper was first owned by Prefco XIV, a limited partnership ofPitney Bowes, which bought the building in 1994 for $100.8 million, according to the building's deed. In counties that used Dominion systems, Biden got 888,259 votes to Trump's 851,069. There is no evidence to support the claim that City Blue Imaging, a longtime Rochester, New York, printing business that went up in flames on Christmas Eve, was under investigation for printing fake ballots. Previous claims had said the bomb had targeted the AT&T building and that Dominion Voting Systems machines were being audited there(here). A spokesperson for the FBI's Denver Field Office confirmed that the FBI executed the . Some posts have said the Nashville explosion was caused by a missile. 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. February 28, 2023, 1:26 PM. 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. Americans should continue to seek information from verifiable, trusted sources, such as law enforcement authorities, Dominion Voting Systems added. There are currently two voting systems which are certified by the State of Florida's Division of Elections. "So, the explosion 'just happened . In 2006, Cerberus Capital acquired it, according to a 2006 News Channel 5 Nashville report. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. The extent of our relationship is this: In 2009, Smartmatic licensed the use of a Dominion voting machine for use in the Philippines. There is a bomb. Skoglund said that they identified only one company among the systems they detected on line, ES&S. 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. No available external evidence suggests AT&T was involved in any such audit, either. 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.". Skoglund says those include the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. Some have also received threatening letters. The cities of West Bend and Mequon's Dominion machine audit found one vote changed each after their hand counts. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Even if an election is run perfectly, it doesn't matter to a sizable portion of the public who believes it was unfair. hide caption. 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. According to the post, that firm ownedthe AT&T building outside of which the Christmas bombing occurred. AT&T had a contract to conduct a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems in Nashville just prior to a December 2020 explosion in that city. This references the claim that supercomputer Hammer and software program Scorecard were used to change votes in Bidens favor in the 2020 Presidential election. The New York Attorney Generals office said they could not confirm nor deny any investigation. 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. Both sit on Dominion's board. Some of the posts attempted to further link AT&T to Dominion by claiming a former owner of the AT&T building was a board member of a firm that owns Dominion. 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. In the wake of the Christmas morning explosion in Nashville, Tenn., a baseless conspiracy theory started circulating online that claims Nashville's downtown AT&T complex, which was damaged in. More:Fact check: Joe Biden legally won presidential election, despite persistent contrary claims. The question is.. Joe Bidens Brother in Law, Steven Owens, is the cofounder of Staple Street Execs along with William Kennard (mentioned above).. Federal officials have identified the man believed to be behind the bombing, and they are working to discern a motive. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. A sample ballot is shown via the Dominion Voting Systems that Georgians use to vote. It is true Kennard serves on the board of Staple Street Capital (not Staple Street execs as the posts say). 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. 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 . So did the type of explosives used to detonate the blast. 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. He is focused on New Technologies around AI led Predictive Analytics, Smart Machines, IT Process Automation etc.. through . 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. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. "The specific steps taken would depend on the recommendation and the timeline required to make changes effectively.. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. Dominion Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software. Newsmax TV aired a stunning fact-check on Monday of claims made on the network about voting companies used in the 2020 presidential election. A sample ballot is shown via the Dominion Voting Systems that Georgians use to vote. The House Committee on Administration held a congressional hearing yesterday which was the first time the heads of the three major vendors, representing at least 80 percent of U.S. voting machines, appeared together for questioning. Shasta County has become a hotbed for unproven conspiracy theories about rigged voting, fueled by former . https://archive.is/qqjBh Paul E. Singer-Elliott Management, aka "The Vulture", reportedly controls CNN parent, AT&T, as well as Twitter. On Tuesday, Coomer sued the Trump campaign and a number of allies, alleging defamation. These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth. Both companies have denied the posts claims, saying that there was no such audit and that Dominions machines were not recently transported to Nashville. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. 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. 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 . APS ASSESSMENT: False. If you have super majorities, Tennessee is like an R plus twenty state.
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