Dominion Voting Systems Sues Fox News For $1.6B Over False Reporting On 2020 Election

Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, part of Fox Corp FOXA, that charged the network with falsely reporting that the company's voting booths were responsible for fraudulent results in the 2020 presidential election.

What Happened: The lawsuit, filed in Delaware Superior Court, claimed that Fox intentionally began broadcasting misinformation about Dominion's voting machine technology to counter a collapse in its ratings after President Donald Trump lost last year's election to former Vice President Joe Biden.

"Fox set to lure viewers back — including President Trump himself — by intentionally and falsely blaming Dominion for President Trump's loss by rigging the election," the lawsuit said. "Fox endorsed, repeated and broadcast a series of verifiably false yet devastating lies about Dominion."

Among the misinformation cited in the lawsuit were claims that Dominion was able to change votes from Trump to Biden through algorithms in its voting machines, Dominion was owned by a Venezuelan company responsible for rigging an election won by dictator Hugo Chavez and Dominion paid kickbacks to government officials who authorized the use of their technology in last year's election. As a result of these claims, Dominion said its executives and employees received death threats and the company suffered "enormous and irreparable economic harm."

"The truth matters," the lawsuit added. "Lies have consequences."

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What Happens Next: Fox News responded to the lawsuit with a statement on Friday defending its reporting: "Fox News Media is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and we will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court."

Despite repeated claims by Trump and many of his supporters, no evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 election was ever documented. Dominion's lawsuit stated the company tried in vain to engage Fox News regarding its reporting, but was ignored.

Dominion has also filed lawsuits against Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell, CEO of Minnesota-based MyPillow and a Trump advocate, over claims of election fraud.

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(Photo by Tom Arthur / Wikimedia Commons)