Enduring the defamatory accusations of 2020, voting organizations and election administrators prepare for the upcoming November elections.
A fortnight subsequently, the man resurfaced, spouting alleged issues with voting security. He further mentioned possessing a firearm in his vehicle. Consequently, Dominion personnel became anxious and reported the matter to the police. Following this incident, a restraining order was granted against him.
This situation, outlined in court records and by an unnamed senior Dominion official who spoke to CNN, is a continuation of the fallout from false assertions regarding the 2020 election. The repercussions have resonated severely at Dominion, the electoral technology company that gained notoriety as the symbol of baseless right-wing claims of voter fraud in 2020.
The barrage of misinformation forced election authorities and companies to revise their strategies for 2024, as per interviews with numerous individuals involved in overseeing the election. They've amplified their investments in physical security, developed new methods to counteract misleading allegations, and tightened regulations on employees' political expressions.
Despite the significant settlement of $787 million paid by Fox News to Dominion, the largest known defamation judgment in US media history, former President Donald Trump and his allies persist in propagating the falsehood that electoral machine firms manipulated the 2020 election and that the 2024 election might also be tampered with.
Even as they prepare for 2024, some individuals involved in managing elections remain apprehensive about their safety. The exodus of election workers who have resigned or retired instead of enduring the abuse for another term continues. Just this week, the Department of Justice announced charges against a Colorado man who threatened to murder election officials in two states due to their alleged treasonous acts.
Multiple Dominion employees have resigned due to the strain and psychological impact of post-2020 turmoil and the escalating security risks, according to the senior Dominion official.
"Whenever a car approaches my house, I always cast a double glance," the senior Dominion official expressed about the aftermath of the security incidents at his workplace. "I've never done that before. We have numerous windows, and if someone stops in front, I'll scrutinize what's happening."
‘Entirely ensnared in misinformation’
Prior to 2020, companies like Dominion, Smartmatic, and Election Systems & Software, which provide voting machines and software for US elections, were not well-known entities.
As Trump attempted to reverse the 2020 election results, he and his associates, such as Rudy Giuliani, Mike Lindell, and the late Fox News personality Lou Dobbs, focused numerous false fraud accusations at electoral machine companies, thereby making these companies popular in MAGA circles.
"Before the lies about recent elections, propagated by defeated candidates, these vendors remained largely anonymous, known only to regulators and election officials," said David Becker, an election industry expert who advises officials from both political parties.
What once seemed mundane and obscure aspects of the country's election infrastructure are now prominent figures in the political disinformation wars. Smartmatic is also suing many of these same Trump allies, and its trial against conservative channel Newsmax is scheduled for next month.
The aftermath of 2020 has spread to the local level.
Last year, a conservative northern California county terminated its Dominion contract prematurely, citing issues of "voter confidence." Officials in one Ohio county attempted to sever ties following a public uproar from local Trump supporters. And a right-wing sheriff in western Michigan continues to utilize his office to hunt for alleged 2020 fraud and peddle anti-Dominion conspiracy theories.
"This time around, it's significantly different," the senior Dominion official informed CNN. "We are still entirely ensnared in misinformation. This disinformation and misinformation is something we've never had to confront before at this scale as we approach an election."
Dominion, whose products are used in 27 states, is receiving "exponentially" more inquiries than ever before from election officials – emails, official letters, and phone calls – often connected to their constituents' unfounded concerns about 2020, the senior official said.
Over the summer, as the 2024 campaign gained momentum, Dominion CEO John Poulos personally met with election officials in various states to help debunk the disinformation, according to sources who spoke to CNN.
The Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency established after the 2000 recount, released a series of videos last month with guidance for local officials on how to interact with the public regarding the upcoming election. Their recommendations can almost be seen as a crash course in crisis communications, with a focus on speed and transparency.
"People are adopting these conspiracy theories as if they're personal experiences," Barb Byrum, a Democrat who has served as Ingham County's county clerk since 2013, stated to CNN in an interview. Ingham County, home to Lansing, makes use of Dominion machines, according to Byrum.
'Intrusive' social media crackdown
Post-2020, Trump supporters initiated their own investigations and doxxing of those they falsely believed were involved in rigging the results. Many of these individuals were Dominion and Smartmatic employees who had otherwise remained out of the public eye.
The prototype for this phenomenon is Eric Coomer, Dominion's former director of strategy and security, who was singled out at the infamous November 2020 press conference where Giuliani and others spewed outlandish conspiracy theories about the election.
"This Coomer character... disappeared all of his social media, but we kept track of it," Giuliani declared, sparking a wave of doxxing from an army of right-wing online sleuths who circulated Coomer's anti-Trump postings, publicized his home address, and more.
After departing from Dominion post-2020, Coomer initiated libel lawsuits against the Trump campaign, Giuliani, and others. He asserted that his previously unblemished reputation had been severely damaged and he could no longer engage in the elections sector. This legal action is still ongoing.
A larger voting company, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), whose technology is utilized in over 1,500 jurisdictions across the nation, escaped the 2020 slander. However, it learned from Coomer's situation and took extreme measures earlier this year, requiring their staff to undergo a social media "screening," according to three former employees who spoke to CNN.
These former workers stated that such scrutiny was not a standard practice in previous election cycles.
A former ES&S employee identifying as conservative described this directive as an "unexpected surprise" that caused "quite a stir" and prompted concerns from executives. A second liberal ES&S former employee deemed the background checks "alarming" and felt they violated their "free speech rights."
"There was definitely a chilling effect," a third former ES&S employee concluded.
The objective of the social media crackdown, as stated in an internal memo reviewed by CNN, was to ensure employees didn't have any publicly accessible posts that could harm ES&S' public or customer relations.
ES&S spokeswoman Katina Granger confirmed that the company conducted these social media evaluations this year. She explained that ES&S has long disallowed employees from endorsing political candidates or parties "in a manner that might compromise the crucial political neutrality of ES&S," which is "an indispensable tenet for individuals who back elections."
Granger added that ES&S, like many employers nowadays, incorporated social media reviews for new hires, along with routine background checks. In early 2021, ES&S determined to subject its existing employees to the same social media review as part of their standard hiring practice.
Granger also mentioned that ES&S has increased its physical security and "strengthened" its digital protections, with additional training and testing to counteract cyberattacks targeting employees. Two senior ES&S officials informed CNN that they invited the Department of Homeland Security to examine their internal cybersecurity measures.
"Panic buttons" for election workers
Dominion staff members continue to be doxed and threatened, according to their legal team.
The threats escalated during the spring, when three prominent election deniers, including ex-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, orchestrated the leak of thousands of internal Dominion documents, and falsely claimed they revealed a Serbian-based plot to manipulate the 2020 results.
The judge presiding over Dominion's defamation case against Byrne famously concluded that these leaks "led to serious threats against Dominion and its personnel." Byrne denies any wrongdoing.
Dominion is also engaging in a shadowboxing match outside of court with these prominent 2020 election deniers.
In June, one of Byrne's self-proclaimed "operatives" unexpectedly appeared at Poulos' (the Dominion CEO) deposition location, as per court filings. The operative recorded their encounter, which Byrne quickly posted online, leading to further backlash from his followers.
Dominion has boosted its investments in physical security, although officials declined to provide specifics. A spokesperson for Smartmatic – whose software was only employed in Los Angeles County in 2020, and will still be used there in 2024 – declined to discuss security spending.
"When I began my career in the elections industry, they didn't need to instruct you on how to react if you were sent poisonous materials through the mail," the senior Dominion official stated.
In 2020, before Thanksgiving, ES&S offered an in-house training session for its employees, advising them on how to respond to family and friends during dinner table discussions where election security would invariably be brought up, according to two senior ES&S officials.
The increased harassment has also spread to the thousands of local election officials who are closest to the voters, as previously reported by CNN. An Arizona-based company specializing in ballot printing recently expanded its offerings to provide election offices with wearable "panic buttons" that dial the police in a single touch.
A spokeswoman for the company, Runbeck Election Services, said the new product "was a direct response to the situations we witnessed in 2020," and that they are currently discussing potential deployments in at least five states.
"Death by a thousand paper cuts"
In addition to the physical intimidation, suspicious letters, and "swatting" attacks targeting election workers, troublemakers have discovered innovative means to disrupt election administration.
Byrum, the county clerk in Lansing, has observed a significant rise in voters utilizing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to request information about the 2020 election. Others call her office, and Byrum is starting to suspect that "they're just trying to keep me on the phone and drain my resources." Byrum believes this might be an organized effort.
"We're enduring death by a thousand paper cuts," Byrum noted. "It's not so much about genuinely seeking public information, but rather about redirecting our resources away from election administration and toward fulfilling the FOIA request requirements."
Over the past five years leading up to the 2020 election, Byrum's office saw an average of less than three significant Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests yearly that required additional focus, as per data shared with CNN. This figure skyrocketed to 21 requests in 2020 and further escalated to 53 requests in 2022, according to the provided data, indicating that 10 significant FOIA requests have already been received this year.
The Election Assistance Commission identified an issue of swamping elections offices with FOIAs post-2020, and subsequently disseminated guidance to local authorities on how to manage this situation.
"It's pleasant to observe more individuals engaged in elections," Byrum commented. "More views are encouraged. However, individuals who are dishonest in their intentions are not. It's disheartening to witness these dishonest individuals targeting election administrators and the process, and the integrity of our electoral system," she added.
The fallout from the false assertions regarding the 2020 election has led companies like Dominion to amplify their investments in physical security and develop new methods to counteract misleading allegations. Despite the legal settlement and financial consequences, former President Donald Trump and his allies continue to propagate the falsehoods about electoral machine firms manipulating the 2020 election.
