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- Christopher Giles và Jake Horton
- BBC reality check
President Trump criticized the electronic vote counting system widely used by electoral agencies across the United States. This, he said, cost him millions of votes.
The machines mentioned by Trump are supplied by Dominion Voting System. The allegations ranged from withdrawing votes to improperly influencing the company by its political opponents.
Specifically, what was President Trump criticizing? Were those criticisms correct?
Trump: “Dominion has eliminated 2.7 million votes for Trump nationwide.”
Reality: There is no evidence to support the above.
The president mentioned a news broadcast on a conservative news channel that supports Trump, One American News Network (OANN).
“Nationwide counting machines were found to remove millions of votes for President Trump,” the channel said.
The OANN newsletter mentions an “unconfirmed data analysis” released by an election monitoring group called Edison Research.
OANN did not provide any evidence to support its claim.
President Trump and his supporters also shared a report from Fox News anchor Sean Hannity who said the counting machines were trading votes in key states, from the content of the vote to him. Trump gave up on Biden.
The report addresses problems in Antrim County, Michigan, where Dominion counting machines are used; says the machine has had a lot of software problems and in other counties as well.
The reality is that there have been problems in County Antrim, not from Dominion software bugs, but from human errors, as Michigan Secretary Jocelyn Benson noted.
Initially, the Antrim County Clerk did not configure the machine’s reporting feature correctly. Consequently, the initial results were inaccurate, with Mr. Biden winning by a margin of approximately 3,000 votes.
Election officials recognized this anomalous result in the region that generally favored the Republican Party, so they checked and adjusted the machine’s reporting functions and conducted a recount. with results showing that the president won with more than 2,500 votes.
Secretary of State Benson said the original incorrect ballot count was quickly identified and reworked, and that even if it did, it was discovered later in the selection process. which is used to identify such errors.
“There is no evidence that this user error has occurred in other parts of the state,” he added.
Hannity also raised potential problems in the state of Georgia, where Dominion machines are widely used; however, the Georgia secretary said that despite some delay in reporting the results, the machine’s software was already in use. Accurate ballot counts and accurate reports on collected ballots in this state.
Dominion Voting Systems issued a statement saying: “Dominion’s vote swapping or deletion statements are 100% false.”
Trump: “The Left Owns Dominion Voting Systems.”
Reality: This is not true, this company is not owned by “Pole Ta”. In the past, companies have contributed money to both Democrats and Republicans.
It is unclear who Trump is referring to when he talks about property that belongs to “The Left.”
Perhaps he mentioned rumors circulating online that the company had connections to the Clintons and other Democratic politicians, including Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
It is also important to clarify the difference between direct ownership of Dominion, as Trump claims, and whether the company makes contributions for humanitarian or lobbying purposes.
Dominion once raised money to serve the interests of both Republicans and Democrats, but it’s not uncommon for a company to lobby for government contracts.
Dominion Voting has issued a statement saying that it is a non-partisan company in the United States and that it has no ownership relationship with any member of the Pelosi family or the Clinton Global Initiative.
The Clinton Foundation also issued a statement, which said the fund “never had any interest in Dominion Voting Systems; we were never involved in the operations of this company; and we confirm that they are not.” I am currently not cooperating with each other. “
However, Dominion funded the Clinton Foundation in 2014 and has pledged to provide humanitarian assistance to the fund to bring vote counting technology to poor countries.
The company also previously sponsored the Senate Committee led by Mitch McConnell, with a Republican majority.
There has been speculation that Pelosi’s former chief of staff Nadeam Elshami is now being hired by Dominion, but the company also recruits employees who previously worked for the Republican Party.
The allegations about the Dominion have also spread to members of the target task force, preparing for President-elect Biden’s transition.
Social media posts say that Peter Neffenger, a volunteer on the Biden team, is the president of a Dominion subsidiary, Smartmatic.
He is the president of Smartmatic, but he is a competitor, not a subsidiary of Dominion.
Trump: Counting machines “have been rejected by Texas and elsewhere because they are not good enough and not safe enough.”
Reality: It is true that Texas did not certify these machines. Path do Texas is different from other states.
The US federal government provides guidance on validating vote counting machines, which means establishing a common national standard.
However, Texas introduced additional regulations and, consequently, Dominion machines were inadequate. This status, for example, requires that each vote carry a unique number so it can be tracked as needed.
Not all states have their own number of ballots, like California, due to concerns about a violation of voter privacy.
“If you prohibit the use of separate numbers for each ballot, you strongly protect the privacy of your voters. But on the other hand, you give in to more modest security measures,” Dan Wallach, says computer science at Rice University in Texas and is advisor on applying national guidelines to counting machines, he says.
These rules and guidelines vary widely from state to state, but the US government’s cybersecurity regulator has expressed its confidence in the counting machines that are used across the country.
“There is no evidence that any vote counting system eliminates or loses votes, alters votes, or is flawed in any other way.”