FOX PHOENIX — Elected leaders in Arizona’s most populous county are bracing for what could happen when the county’s $2 million-a-year contract for voting equipment expires.

Maricopa County officials, which encompasses Phoenix, say they have no reservations about their current vendor, Dominion Voting Systems. The issue is that the company has become entangled in a web of conspiracy theories since the 2020 presidential election, which has eroded public trust in US elections among conservative voters, led to calls to ban voting machines in some areas, and triggered death threats against election officials across the country.

“I am concerned about my security if we re-enlist Dominion,” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican elected in 2020, stated in court. “It went from a company that no one had heard of to one of the most demonized brands in the United States or the world.”

The Colorado-based voting machine company’s unexpected turnaround is at the core of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit it has filed against Fox News. The trial is set to begin in mid-April. On multiple occasions, Dominion says Fox defamed it by airing false claims about the company’s voting machines and software. Court documents and testimony showed that several Fox hosts and executives did not believe the claims made by former President Donald Trump and his supporters since the 2020 election, but they continued to broadcast them, in part because they were afraid of losing viewers.

Defamation lawsuit it has filed against Fox News.

As Trump and his fellow Republicans argued that he shouldn’t have lost to Democrat Joe Biden, Fox said it was reporting on newsworthy allegations. The network says that Dominion has exaggerated how much it’s worth, couldn’t have done the damage it’s accused of and has played down security worries about its machines. Fox’s lawyers also say that the court documents show that Dominion is in good financial shape.

According to Fox, the case has no merit, and the outrageous damage claim only highlights its overt attempt to censor constitutionally protected speech.

Dominion has shown proof that it lost business contracts and opportunities in the last two years. It cites misinformation as the reason officials in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee have ended contracts with it, while counties in Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, and Ohio have yet to choose to renew.

One expert estimated that Dominion had lost nearly $16 million in profits due to customers who either terminated their contracts early or decided not to renew in a report the company submitted in November as part of its lawsuit.

According to the same estimate, Dominion has already lost $72.3 million in potential contract extensions, extra equipment sales and service contracts with current customers, and new business.

Overall, the expert estimated that the company’s value had dropped by $920 million, which included the anticipated taxes the company would have to pay if it were awarded damages. The expert also estimated additional missed opportunities, which have not been officially disclosed.

Overall, the expert estimated that the company’s value had dropped by $920 million.

A Dominion spokeswoman, Stephanie Walstrom, said, “The evidence will show that before Fox started spreading and endorsing lies about Dominion voting machines, Dominion was a valuable, quickly growing business that was executing its plan to grow.”

The company’s difficulties are far from over, as conspiracy theories about the last presidential race have permeated much of the Republican Party. Trump supporters still travel the nation, meeting with community groups and holding forums to spread election conspiracies.

Some county officials, citing constituent concerns, have used the conspiracies to justify refusing to certify election results and have fed efforts to decertify or ban voting equipment.

“People aren’t acting rationally,” said Lawrence Norden, a Brennan Center for Justice election security expert who has pushed for increased voter access and funding for elected offices. “They’re canceling contracts at a high cost to their taxpayers.”

Recent actions, such as in Shasta County, California, where the board of supervisors ended its contract with Dominion early, are not included in the Dominion expert’s report. The board cited a loss of public trust in the machines used in the county to tabulate paper ballots marked by hand at a meeting in January.

Trump received 65% of the vote in Shasta County in 2020.

“Dominion has to prove to me that we have a free and fair election,” said Patrick Henry Jones, Chair of the Board of Supervisors, who led the campaign to end the contract. “Just because we’re all sitting here and elected doesn’t mean we’ve always had free and fair elections.”

The board is now pursuing a proposal fox to count ballots by hand, which experts believe needs to be more accurate and takes longer in all but the smallest jurisdictions. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a Trump supporter, has vowed to help them eliminate their voting machines.

Lindell stated in an interview that he is willing to contribute to the expenses of any lawsuits that Shasta County may face.

“They have the right to use paper ballots and a hand count,” Lindell said. “They must be brave, or we will not be able to get rid of these machines.”

Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen fox has defended the voting equipment and blamed “disproven conspiracy theories” for undermining the county’s election system and employees. She has warned that the county is at risk of being unable to hold elections.

“Their actions have jeopardized the security of our elections and set a dangerous precedent that encourages outsiders to undermine our elections at the county level,” Darling Allen testified to Congress earlier this month.

Election security experts were worried that three companies already dominated the market.

She estimated that hand-counting all ballots in a presidential election with 50 candidates would cost at least $1.6 million and necessitate the employment of nearly 1,300 temporary workers. More than 111,000 people are enrolled to vote in the county.

Election security experts were worried that three companies already dominated the market for voting machines before the 2020 election. fox Election Systems & Software, a Dominion competitor, has not reported contract cancellations but has been forced to defend its image amid the voting machine conspiracies.

In a recent hearing, Fox’s attorney, Erin Murphy, told the Delaware Superior Court judge presiding over the defamation case that Dominion has “a real speculation problem” regarding its claims for damages and that Dominion’s lost-profits argument appears to be based on the presumption that it would have won every contract it sought if Fox’s coverage of the election fraud allegations had not occurred.

That ignores the reality that Dominion’s competitors have occasionally offered lower bids or more appealing technology, according to Murphy. Fox has used internal communications, such as one in which a Dominion worker said, “God, our products stink,” and a federal advisory that describes possible security holes found in a Dominion system.

Maricopa County, Arizona, has been at the vanguard of Dominion conspiracy theories. In 2021, the GOP-controlled Legislature used its subpoena power to seize the county’s voting equipment and hired a company run by Trump supporters to comb through it for proof that the machines had been tampered with. The company discovered none, and project manager Doug Logan admitted in a private text message revealed in an unrelated lawsuit that “the Dominion machine is quite precise.” Nonetheless, mistrust persists.

Waldeep Singh, Dominion’s senior vice president of sales, stated in a court filing that the situation in Arizona has made doing business there impossible. He blamed conspiracy theories for the company’s failure to gain business in Yavapai County, a conservative rural county north of Phoenix.

“All I can tell you is that, based on my experience and our trajectory at the time in Arizona,” Singh said, “we were trending in a very positive direction.”

“I don’t think we’ll win anything in Arizona again,” he said.

SOURCE – (AP)