Dominion Voting Systems, the voting technology corporation at the center of false election fraud allegations in 2020, has been purchased by a new company called Liberty Vote, the company announced Thursday.
Scott Leiendecker — a former GOP elections director in St. Louis, Missouri, and the founder of another well-known elections technology company KNOWiNK — will helm the company in an effort to "restore public confidence” in elections with “transparent, secure, and trustworthy” voting systems, the release said.
“As of today, Dominion is gone,” the statement reads. “Liberty Vote assumes full ownership and operational control.”
Dominion Voting Systems stood at the forefront of the election fraud accusations that embroiled the 2020 election, as far-right activists — and President Donald Trump himself — falsely accused the company of attempting to steal votes from Trump. Conservative news networks like Fox News and Newsmax amplified the theories, and soon after faced a flood of litigation from Dominion.
The voting company sued Fox News for the false claims and reached a $787.5 million settlement in the case — marking the largest defamation-related settlement. Newsmax similarly settled a defamation lawsuit for $67 million.
Dominion Voting Systems did not respond to a request for comment.
The St. Louis-based company has already outlined its top initiatives in the company’s rebrand — using hand-marked paper ballots, committing to entirely American ownership in its staffing and software development and incorporating third-party auditing to “verify election integrity.”
“Liberty Vote signals a new chapter for American elections — one where trust is rebuilt from the ground up,” Leiendecker said in the statement. “Liberty Vote is committed to delivering election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency, security, and simplicity so that voters can be assured that every ballot is filled-in accurately and fairly counted.”
The release noted that it would have a focus on paper ballots, “leveraging hand-marked paper ballots enabling compliance with President Trump’s executive order.”
However, the vast majority of Americans already vote in jurisdictions that allow for handmarking ballots, according to the nonpartisan election administration advocacy group Verified Voting, and nearly every single American lives in a jurisdiction that otherwise has an auditable trail for votes.
The repositioning of the company comes amid Trump’s renewed focus on an overhaul of U.S. elections in his second term, including attempts to require proof of citizenship for voters to cast a ballot and narrowing who can receive mail-in ballots. Trump’s attempts to dictate election policy has received significant pushback from state election officials.
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