Social media users have been sharing content online that claims AT&T had a contract to do a forensic audit on Dominion Voting Systems machines and that the Dec. 25 explosion in Nashville,. 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. (Read more about, Breaking news meme generators are frequently used online to create fabricated headlines and chyrons such as this one. Skoglund says those include the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. Thank you for supporting our journalism. AT&T not conducting voting machine audit near Nashville explosion site. Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos is not ruling out legal action against President Trump, whose surrogates have spent nearly two months alleging the Nov. 3 election, which Trump lost, may . 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. No amount of transparency at the county and state level can really combat the sort of megaphone that Trump wields, Kiniry says. The posts all tie AT&T with Dominion, holding the explosion to be alleged proof of conspiracy. 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. Much of the voting equipment was by Dominion. Copyright 2023 Politifact. The Trump followers believe that the explosion was actually a missile strike aimed at destroying. In 2006, Cerberus Capital acquired it, according to a 2006 News Channel 5 Nashville report. Cerberus Capital Management, the firm named in the posts, does not own Dominion, nor does it own the company that does own Dominion, Staple Street Capital. Staple Street Capital has a managing director and co-founder named Stephen Owens. There is a bomb. 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. But companies that specialize in the subject said it is getting exponentially worse. "And I probably will. Owens, the other co-founder of Staple Street Capital,did not work for Cerberus, despite the post's claim. 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 . Read more about our fact-checking work here . All rights reserved. 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. Some have also received threatening letters. 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. The three largest voting manufacturing companies Election Systems &Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic have acknowledged they all put modems in some of their tabulators and scanners. 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. This material may not be reproduced without permission. 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. 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. It is true Kennard serves on the board of Staple Street Capital (not Staple Street execs as the posts say). Some of the posts (here) say: Dominion voting is owned by Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus is run by Staple Street Execs. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. 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. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. There is no evidence that the AT&T switching center damaged by the explosion (here) housed a supercomputer being used to alter the elections outcome. 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 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 . That flood reached Dominion the week after the election, according to Zignal, and misinformation related to the company's machines has been mentioned more than 10 million times since then. 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. That building is located at 333 Commerce St., roughly a quarter mile from where the bomb went off. He also serves on 16 boards and commissions, on two of which he is the presiding member. 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. Sumit Ganguli is the CEO and Member of the Board at GAVS Technologies. Social media posts from the event tagged the far-right group the Proud Boys. 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. DNA found at the scene matched Warner's, according to an FBI press release. The FBI confirmed that a man named Anthony Warner was responsible for the bombing and was killed in the blast. 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. According to the post, that firm ownedthe AT&T building outside of which the Christmas bombing occurred. Powell was one of the faces of the Trump. Social media is home to several conspiracy theories about the explosion in Nashville on Christmas Day. 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. 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. Behind it is the notion that if voting systems are not online, hackers will have a harder time compromising them. 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 bomber was lateridentified by U.S. Attorney Don Cochranas Anthony Warner, 63, according to The Tennessean. The post, which has been shared almost 900 times, makes two claims: A building damaged in the Nashville explosion was holding Dominion Voting Systems machines set to be audited, and in New. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle that Warner owned. Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. the post reads. 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. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. The cities of West Bend and Mequon's Dominion machine audit found one vote changed each after their hand counts. The wishes are that I forever have to look over my shoulder," Coomer said. Their evidence: a grainy black-and-white video. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. All those. DNA found at the scene matched Warner's, according to an FBI press release. There is no evidence to support the claim that the Nashville bombing or City Blue Imaging's fire were connected to election malfeasance, so we rate this claim FALSE. Tim Walz signed into law one of the largest voter . Reuters found no evidence that Cerberus Capital Management (www.cerberus.com/) owns Dominion. "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. 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 . 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. US Elections were November 3, 2020. Dominionwas acquired by private equity firm Staple Street Capital, co-founded by financiers Hootan Yaghoobzadeh and StephenOwens, in 2018. "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." 4 min read. 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. "Bombing investigations can take years," Darrell DeBusk, an FBI spokesman based inTennessee, told The Tennessean. 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. 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. 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. "Very, very interesting.". 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 electronic voting system company accused the television network of spreading lies that Dominion machines were used to rig the 2020 election against Donald Trump. Dominion told AFP the claim is "another bizarre lie being spread by known conspiracy theorists.". The explosion in the heart of Nashville injured three people and damaged businesses including an AT&T switching center, disrupting mobile, internet and TV services across central Tennessee and parts of four other states (here). The reason? 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. "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. The post implies that the bombing was an attempt to stop the audit and cover up voter fraud. Since the 2016 election, Michigan authorized $82 million dollars to upgrade its election systems. 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 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. There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. As people experience their own individual Internet bubbles, it can be hard to recognize just how much misinformation exists and how the current information ecosystem compares with previous years. Both Dominion Voting Systems andAT&T confirmed the communications company was not contracted to audit Dominion's machines. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994 as a creative outgrowth of his wide-ranging interests in a variety of subjects (particularly folklo read more. "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. Reuters Fact Check previously debunked this claim here . The ATT building in Nashville that was affected by the bomb was owned by Cerebus (sic) Capital. A newly-released court filing in the Dominion voting machines defamation lawsuit . "What we should do is remove all of the unnecessary, hackable pathways, such as modems. 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. 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. Fact-checkers have debunked claims that the explosion was the result of a missile strike. Owners of Dominion Voting Systems,(the company many people are accusing of voter fraud) are former executives from Cerebus," another post reads. Both companies have denied the posts claims, saying that there was no such audit and that Dominions machines were not recently transported to Nashville. February 28, 2023, 1:26 PM. But he has no idea if that will ever be possible. 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.". ", 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 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.". Some of that money was spent on tabulators with wireless modems. Its true that an AT&T-owned building in Nashville was one of many buildings damaged in Fridays. Did City Blue Imaging Print Voting Ballots, Then Burn Down? A spokesperson for Dominion Voting Systems confirmed to Reuters via email that the Stephen Owens at Staple Street has no family ties or business affiliations with Bidens sister, Valerie Biden Owens. 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. "Fuck a drag bill," they wrote in an Instagram post. Heres more information on Facebooks fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536. Those modems connect to cell phone networks, which, in turn, are connected to the internet. 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. (Read more about ourpartnership with Facebook.). We kept hearing from election officials that voting machines were never on the internet, he said. As of Friday, a motive in the bombing remained under investigation by the FBI, the ATF and Metro Nashville police. 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. 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. On Nov. 21, a group protested in front of Dominion's Denver headquarters, waving American flags and signs saying "fraud equals arrests." 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 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.. 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. 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. 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. 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. So we will clear it up: Its fake. Note that aspects of Tennessee law may differ with what is seen on the videos. View list by county(.pdf) and learn more about each system using the links below. 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 . 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. These claims are groundless. Full Story. Conspiracy theorists say the suicide bombing that rocked downtown Nashville was actually the result of a missile strike. 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 . More:Neighbor recalls warning, countdown before Nashville explosion. "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. "The minute I saw it, it left a big pit in my stomach," he said. causing widespread communications outages. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, which provides cybersecurity frameworks for state and local governments and other organizations, recommends that voting systems should not have wireless network connections. Statement:The Nashville bombing was an attempt to stop an AT&T audit into Dominion software and cover up election corruption. You cansubscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Jim Greer, a spokesperson for AT&T,also told USA TODAY the claims are "not true.". There is no evidence that the New York printing company whose building burnt down on Christmas Day was under investigation for printing false ballots. AT&T does not hold a contract to audit Dominions software or machines and did not have any of the companys equipment in its Nashville building. Some shorter posts here and here say: Wait, the bombing in Nashville was at the AT&T Data Center right after they got the contract to audit the Dominion Voting machines? The Poynter Institute Menu. It wasn't meant to kill people, but to destroy a building. So did the type of explosives used to detonate the blast. The conspiracy theory has grown into a movement that is promoted by right-wing extremists. (Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images). 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. The claim implies the explosion was an elaborate plot to destroy voting machines that might have yielded evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. More on Dominion:Fact check: Viral photo shows fake logo and slogan for Dominion Voting Systems. Select an Infowars smear of Dominion Voting Systems. The three largest voting manufacturing companies Election Systems &Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic have acknowledged they all put modems in some of their tabulators. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has promised for months since the 2020 election that he had obtained Dominion, Smartmatic and ES&S voting machines, and they would be on full. The bomb was located in a recreational vehicle owned by Warner. Claims that two buildings that were destroyed on Christmas Day were both holding evidence related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election are untrue. Hismotive is unknown. The post also mentions the Kraken or supercomputer and says that the cooling system for this computer was located in the AT&T building. This is bogus. In counties that used Dominion systems, Biden got 888,259 votes to Trump's 851,069. Both companies have denied the posts claims, saying that there was no such audit and that Dominions machines were not recently transported to Nashville. 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 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. 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. Even though it has a blue Nashville and a blue Memphis. "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.. 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. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. 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. On Christmas Day, an RV in Nashville, Tennessee, exploded, severelydamaging many of the buildings around it in the explosion. 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. The post provides no links to evidence for their allegations. "I actually am in fear for my safety," Coomer said recently, speaking by video call from an undisclosed location to Colorado Public Radio. Across the country on Christmas Eve, a printing press company in New York burned to the ground. On Tuesday, Coomer sued the Trump campaign and a number of allies, alleging defamation. 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. All rights reserved. Now, the alleged Dominion Voting Systems tie. There is no evidence that suggests that the explosion was election-related. 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 was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. 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..
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