That's false. It also claims the AT&T building that was affected by the bomb is where those machines were being stored. Dominion Voting Systems previously sent OAN letters threatening to sue, accusing the network of spreading the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the election-technology company manipulated. Dominion Voting Systems, a voting machine manufacturer founded in Canada, made equipment that is used in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. EDITORS NOTE (Feb. 7, 2020, 11:15 p.m.): A previous version of this article stated that Kevin Skoglund and his team had found election systems using ES&S scanners with wireless modems connected to the internet in 11 states and the District of Columbia. However, he is not tied to Joe Biden and is not his sister Valerie Biden Owens husband. "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. 27postsays. 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. Reuters debunked this claim here . Its disgusting. While the companys website states that zero of its voting tabulators are connected to the internet, ES&S told NBC News 14,000 of their DS200 tabulators with online modems are currently in use around the country. Social media posts from the event tagged the far-right group the Proud Boys. IE 11 is not supported. 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. The Poynter Institute Menu. 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. But none of this is true. 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. Owens, the other co-founder of Staple Street Capital,did not work for Cerberus, despite the post's claim. Law enforcement authorities have suggested that Warner may have been paranoid about 5G technology, a QAnon-related conspiracy theory that makes an array of unproven claims including that ithelps spread COVID-19and is used as a spying tool by the government. 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. Americans should continue to seek information from verifiable, trusted sources, such as law enforcement authorities, Dominion Voting Systems added. The explosion injured three other people and damaged businesses in downtown Nashville, including an AT&T switching center, which resulted in widespread communications outages. No available external evidence suggests AT&T was involved in any such audit, either. Detailed voter instructions for the Infinity voting unit, How to Vote an Optical Scan Ballot with Unisyn Equipment, Public Records Policy and Records Request Form. "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. 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 . Similar claims have been shared in hundreds of public posts, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool. (Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images). He believes there is time to make real change before the 2020 election. 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. 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. Tim Walz signed into law one of the largest voter . A sample ballot is shown via the Dominion Voting Systems that Georgians use to vote. As of Friday, a motive in the bombing remained under investigation by the FBI, the ATF and Metro Nashville police. Cerberus Capital previously owned the AT&T Building, onceknownas the BellSouth Building,where the company has operated its Tennessee headquarters since the building's erection in 1994. Rating: False About this rating On Christmas. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. 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. Here are the facts: CLAIM: President-elect Joe Biden's sister is married to Stephen Owens, the co-founder of the private equity firm Staple Street Capital, which owns Dominion Voting Systems . 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. Claims that two buildings that were destroyed on Christmas Day were both holding evidence related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election are untrue. The West Bend clerk wrote, "The wrong marking device was used to mark the . 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. Both companies have also denied that AT&T held a contract to audit machines from Dominion Voting Systems (other Fact Checks on these claims can be seen here and here ). 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. Jim Greer, a spokesperson for AT&T, told USA TODAY the claims are "not true. In the wake of the Christmas morning explosion in Nashville, Tenn., a baseless conspiracy theory started circulating online that 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. Both Dominion Voting Systems andAT&T confirmed the communications company was not contracted to audit Dominion's machines. ES&S confirmed they had sold scanners with wireless modems to at least 11 states. In 2006, Cerberus Capital acquired it, according to a 2006 News Channel 5 Nashville report. Some users seemed to recognize the story as fake, but others didnt. Bogus conspiracy theory spreading online claims the Nashville bombing was an attempt to cover up voter fraud. Videos from law enforcement officials and local businesses show that the explosion occurred on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Nashville. 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. The voting rights of more than 55,000 formerly incarcerated Minnesotans were restored on Friday, as Gov. 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. That building is located at 333 Commerce St., roughly a quarter mile from where the bomb went off. You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. The FBI confirmed that a man named Anthony Warner was responsible for the bombing and was killed in the blast. Next theory: The bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. Reuters found no evidence that Cerberus Capital Management (www.cerberus.com/) owns Dominion. 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. All rights reserved. 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. 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. We rate thisclaim as FALSE, because it wasn't supported by our research. 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. 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. 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). On January 8, it filed a defamation suit against pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, seeking $1.3 billion in damages. Coomer said in addition to his own information, the personal addresses of everyone from his parents and siblings to his ex-girlfriends have been posted online. We kept hearing from election officials that voting machines were never on the internet, he 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. "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. Their evidence: a grainy black-and-white video. he instructions and videos shown here have been prepared by the manufacturers and are general in nature. We can not make our computers perfectly secure," he said. Note that aspects of Tennessee law may differ with what is seen on the videos. The company put the building back on the market shortly thereafter; MetLife Inc., throughsubsidiary Prefco Fourteen, now owns the building, public records show. But now, some state officials worry that the machines may pose a security risk and are pushing to have the modems removed. All of these businesses were reported to be damaged in the blast (here). Please note t he instructions and videos shown here have been prepared by the manufacturers and are general in nature. 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. The bomb is in this vehicle and will explode." There are currently two voting systems which are certified by the State of Florida's Division of Elections. Investigators say the explosion in Nashville was perpetrated by a 63-year-old Tennessean named Anthony Warner, who blared a warning to nearby people from his RV requesting they evacuate before the bomb detonated. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. ", Both Snopes and AFP reached the same conclusion. US Elections were November 3, 2020. There can still be security holes that allow hackers to get into the phone network.. The AT&T building the posts likely refer to was not the one outside which the bomb exploded on Christmas morning. Dominion provides election equipment and software to 28 states, including many of the swing states on which Trump has focused his post-election ire. "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 bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. CLAIM: AT&T got a contract to do a forensic audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines and those machines were recently moved . for the blast that rattled downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, social media users have invented their own far-fetched theories. 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 is bogus. But election integrity advocates worry the disinformation won't truly begin to recede until political leaders such as Trump stop questioning the election's legitimacy. AP'S ASSESSMENT: False. Before starting Staple Street Capital, Yaghoobzadeh worked as a senior vice president for private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. 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). "I'm in fear for my family's safety. The reason? There is no reason to suppose that it would be likely, or even possible, that these buildings, would be used to audit voting machines. Dominion 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, said Tony Fratto, a partner at the PR firm Hamilton Place Strategies who emailed the AP on behalf of Dominion. Thank you for supporting our journalism. More:Fact check: No, Joe Biden's brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems. Some of Trump's supporters have focused on Coomer as the supposed evil mastermind. 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). Read more about our fact-checking work here . More:Neighbor recalls warning, countdown before Nashville explosion. 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. However, there are no news reports available online that mention that the business was involved with an investigation related to the election, and Google searches for any mention of the company and an investigation into ballot fraud from the start of September to the date of the fire do not reveal even online rumors to that effect circulating before the fire broke out (here), The companys Facebook page has addressed rumors that have spread since the fire, saying: To the misinformed people on @Twitter and @instagram #cityblueimaging does not print #ballots (here). The posts all tie AT&T with Dominion, holding the explosion to be alleged proof of conspiracy. Statement:The Nashville bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. 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. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. No amount of transparency at the county and state level can really combat the sort of megaphone that Trump wields, Kiniry says. "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.. The Nashville outlet found . Some have also received threatening letters. 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 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. 2023 www.statesman.com. Now, the alleged Dominion Voting Systems tie. ", More:Three firefighters hurt battling three-alarm blaze in Rochester. At its core is the prediction thatan alleged mass arrest ofhigh-profile Democrats and celebritieswould be carried out while now-former President Donald Trump secretly savedthe world from a satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals. The AT&T building in downtown Nashville. Please note the instructions and videos shown here have been prepared by the manufacturers and are general in nature. Previous claims had said the bomb had targeted the AT&T building and that Dominion Voting Systems machines were being audited there(here). But to draw that connection, a number of other groups are brought into the fold and it doesn't add up. "Thats an interesting coincidence.". On Nov. 21, a group protested in front of Dominion's Denver headquarters, waving American flags and signs saying "fraud equals arrests." An executive at Dominion Voting Systems moved to dismiss Newsmax as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit Friday after reaching a settlement with the right-wing media organization. The social media post states "AT&T got contract [sic] to do forensic audit on Dominion voting machines and those machines were being moved to Nashville this past week" before the bombing. These are conspiracies manufactured out of whole cloth. 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 . This screengrab is being shared on social media without that context. The post implies that the bombing was an attempt to stop the audit and cover up voter fraud. Select an Infowars smear of Dominion Voting Systems. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Examples can be seen here , here and here . 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. "To the misinformed people on @Twitter and @instagram #cityblueimaging does not print #ballots, does not do work for #Phoenixgraphics and was never owned by the owner of #phoenixgraphics," the company wrote on its Facebook page on Dec. 27. 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. The Genesius Times describes itself as the "most reliable source of fake news on the planet" and that it strives "to provide the most up-to-date, accurate fake news on the Internet,", "Nashville explosion a missile strike??" A spokesperson for the FBI's Denver Field Office confirmed that the FBI executed the . By Helen Coster and Jack Queen (Reuters) -A new filing from Dominion Voting Systems became public on Monday, as an April trial approaches in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by the voting technology company against Fox News over the U.S. cable news giant's coverage of the 2020 presidential election. NBC News asked the two other major manufacturers how many of their tabulators with modems were currently in use. The question is.. Did AT&T Have a Contract to Audit Dominion Voting Systems? Facebook post:The Nashville bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. Critics also argue ES&S has mislead jurisdictions into thinking their DS200 tabulators with modems are certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a claim they say is grounds for an investigation. Newsmax TV aired a stunning fact-check on Monday of claims made on the network about voting companies used in the 2020 presidential election. After that podcast went out, the threats quickly arrived. Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. Posted By: Dreadnought, 2/28/2023 9:52:47 PM Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News highlights former House Speaker Paul Ryan's alleged influence over Fox News Channel's (FNC) editorial control, reportedly urging . Donald Trump went after media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his network Fox News in rants on Truth Social where he once again pushed the baseless and debunked claim that the . He was present when the bomb went off, and he perished in the bombing," Cochran said. Staple Street Capital has a managing director and co-founder named Stephen Owens. Authorities still dont know the reason for the Christmas day bombing, but theres no evidence it was election related. 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 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. "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. 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. In counties that used Dominion systems, Biden got 888,259 votes to Trump's 851,069. In . Similar claims have already been debunked by Reuters (here). A sample ballot is shown via the Dominion Voting Systems that Georgians use to vote. the post reads. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. John Bazemore/AP These are real, tangible things coming out of these baseless accusations.". ", 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. The claim: Dominion Voting Systems is tied up in the Nashville bombing, based on the affected AT&T building's ownership and that the cellular company was contracted to audit Dominion's. There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. Jim Greer, Assistant Vice President of Corporate Communications at AT&T, told Reuters via email: None of the things in the post are true.. Were focusing on moving forward.. 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. Now the process of counting these votes .