Since the election, several “conservative” commentators and allies of the president have been disparaging electronic voting machines and especially two companies involved in the manufacture of the machines and software development. Dominion and Smartmatic have become punching bags. Witness tweets like this from Donald Trump’s attorney.
The two companies in question aren’t taking these remarks lightly. The New York Times spoke with Antonio Mugica, the owner of Smartmatic.
“Of course I was surprised, but at the same time, it was pretty clear that these people were trying to discredit the election and they were throwing out 25 conspiracy theories in parallel.”
But he says it quickly became clear that this was an ongoing theme right-wing media was pushing.
Soon his company, and a competitor, Dominion — which sells its services to about 1,900 of the county governments that administer elections across America — were at the center of Mr. Giuliani’s and Sidney Powell’s theories, and on the tongues of commentators on Fox News and its farther-right rivals, Newsmax and One America News.
Now the companies are exploring legal action and according to experts it certainly seems like they would have a strong case. “Smartmatic wasn’t even used in the contested states.”
Mugica’s attorney J. Erik Connolly told the Times:
“We’ve gotten to this point where there’s so much falsity that is being spread on certain platforms, and you may need an occasion where you send a message, and that’s what punitive damages can do in a case like this.”
The attorney for Dominion Voting Systems, is threatening legal action against the Trump campaign and attorney Sidney Powell (who has made two visits to the White House in the last week).
It certainly seems all this led Fox News and Fox Business to try to do a little clean-up over the weekend. Shows helmed by Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo aired a segment that fact-checked the network’s claims against Smartmatic.
But that fact-check may not go far enough. First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams told The New York Times.
“The repeated accusations against both companies are plainly defamatory and surely have done enormous reputational and financial harm to both.”
Now the question is what financial harm could be done to the TV channels in question. While Fox is a “multibillion-dollar empire,” the newspaper argues that potential lawsuits “could destroy” outlets like Newsmax and OAN.
