Dominion Voting Systems

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation
Company type	Private (formerly)
Industry	Electronic voting technology
Founded	January 14, 2002; 24 years ago in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Founder	John Poulos, James Hoover
Fate	Acquired and rebranded as Liberty Vote in 2025 by Scott Leiendecker
Headquarters	Toronto, Ontario and Denver, Colorado, Canada, United States
Area served	Canada, United States, internationally
Key people	John Poulos (President and CEO), James Hoover (Vice President)
Products	Electronic voting machines, tabulation devices, ImageCast Evolution, ImageCast X, ImageCast Central, Election Management System (EMS), Adjudication Client, Mobile Ballot Printing
Parent	Staple Street Capital (until 2025)

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation was a company operating in North America that specialized in the production and distribution of electronic voting technology, including voting machines and tabulation devices, mainly serving markets in Canada and the United States.

In 2025, ownership changed hands when Scott Leiendecker purchased the firm and rebranded it as Liberty Vote.

Company

Established in Toronto with additional offices in Denver, Dominion developed its software through teams located in the United States, Canada, and Serbia. The company produced electronic voting equipment designed for casting ballots electronically as well as optical scanners used for counting paper ballots.

While Dominion’s technology was utilized internationally, its primary application was within Canadian and American elections, covering significant party leadership elections and various local contests. During the 2020 U.S. presidential election, its systems were responsible for vote tabulation in twenty-eight states, notably including critical battlegrounds such as Wisconsin and Georgia.

After the 2020 election, Dominion became the focus of widespread scrutiny amid unfounded conspiracy theories alleging vote manipulation favoring Joe Biden over Donald Trump. These accusations were consistently refuted by election authorities, cybersecurity agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and independent experts. Manual recounts conducted in Georgia and Wisconsin verified that Dominion’s machines accurately counted votes, with any inconsistencies attributed to human mistakes rather than technical failures.

History

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation was established in 2002 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by founders John Poulos and James Hoover, officially incorporated on January 14, 2003. The company’s name is inspired by the Dominion Elections Act.

Headquartered in Toronto and Denver, Colorado, Dominion focused on developing proprietary software alongside marketing electronic voting hardware and tabulation equipment primarily across the U.S. and Canada, supported by a development team based in Serbia.

In 2018, control of Dominion shifted following a management buyout backed by private equity firm Staple Street Capital.

During late 2020 and early 2021, prominent media organizations such as Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, and American Thinker withdrew allegations against Dominion after facing defamation threats. In January 2021, Dominion initiated defamation lawsuits demanding $1.3 billion each from former Trump campaign attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani. Subsequently, One America News Network (OANN) removed references to Dominion without issuing public corrections.

Dominion later filed lawsuits against Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne, along with Mike Lindell and his company MyPillow, seeking $1.6 billion per defendant. Although attempts were made to dismiss these cases, courts allowed the lawsuits involving Fox News, Lindell, and MyPillow to advance.

In April 2023, just prior to trial commencement, Fox News reached a settlement with Dominion for $787.5 million. By May 2023, CEO John Poulos publicly acknowledged anticipated customer attrition that could jeopardize the company’s operational stability.

In 2025, Scott Leiendecker—former Republican election official from Missouri and head of e-pollbook manufacturer KnowInk—acquired Dominion Voting Systems through a newly formed entity named Liberty Vote.

Acquisitions

In May 2010, Dominion purchased Premier Election Solutions (previously known as Diebold Election Systems) from Election Systems & Software (ES&S), following a mandate by the United States Department of Justice that required ES&S to divest Premier due to anti-trust regulations. The subsequent month, Dominion expanded its electronic voting technology offerings by acquiring Sequoia Voting Systems.

Officers

John Poulos serves as Dominion's President and CEO, holding a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto alongside an MBA from INSEAD. James Hoover, the Vice President, earned a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta.

Equipment

Dominion Voting Systems supplies electronic voting devices and software throughout the United States and Canada. Their primary products include ImageCast Evolution (ICE), ImageCast X (ICX), and ImageCast Central (ICC).

The ImageCast Evolution functions as an optical scan tabulator deployed at precincts to read and count marked paper ballots. It also facilitates ballot marking for voters with disabilities through an integrated accessibility device, enabling all voters to submit paper ballots using the same equipment. The ICE identifies ballot irregularities such as blank or overvoted ballots and securely transmits encrypted results for centralized tabulation once polls close.

ImageCast X is a ballot-marking device designed with accessibility in mind, featuring a 19-inch full-color touchscreen, audio assistance available in up to ten languages, and an Audio-Tactile Interface (ATI) handheld controller to enhance usability. It produces a marked paper ballot serving as the official record and offers customizable display options and tactile controls to accommodate diverse voter requirements, including sip-and-puff devices.

ImageCast Central utilizes commercial Canon DR-X10C or DR-G1130 scanners at centralized locations to process vote-by-mail and provisional ballots. The scanned data is stored on servers accessible via Adjudication Client software for review and final tabulation.

Software

Dominion’s voting systems operate on proprietary software suites such as Election Management System (EMS), Adjudication Client, and Mobile Ballot Printing. These platforms support features including cumulative voting, which allows multiple votes per candidate, and Ranked Order Voting, where votes are reallocated as candidates are eliminated.

The EMS oversees tasks before and after voting, such as designing ballot layouts, programming voting machines, generating audio files, importing vote results, and producing election reports.

Adjudication Client facilitates administrative tasks and ballot review processes, allowing election officials to address ballot issues like blank votes, write-ins, overvoting, ambiguous marks, and undervotes without invalidating ballots. It manages user permissions, reasons for exceptions, batch processing workflows, and report creation. Each adjudicated ballot records the poll worker’s username to maintain accountability.

Mobile Ballot Printing integrates with EMS to generate printable ballot images in .pdf format embedded with security elements like tints and watermarks. These images are transferred to a laptop for printing on blank paper stock to create physical ballots. The laptop retains only geopolitical data without storing any voter-specific information. Additionally, the system produces reports in Excel, Word, and .pdf formats summarizing printed ballots and styles utilized.

United States

Dominion ranks as the second-largest supplier of voting machines in the United States. In 2016, its equipment was utilized by 70 million voters across approximately 1,600 jurisdictions. In 2019, the state of Georgia chose Dominion to deploy a new voting system statewide beginning in 2020.

During the 2020 presidential election, Dominion machines were used to count votes in 28 states, including many key battleground states. This extensive deployment placed Dominion at the center of political disputes following the election results.

Dominion's technology is also in use in Puerto Rico, where the State Commission on Elections is evaluating whether to terminate its contract after vote irregularities emerged in 2024.

In Texas, the Secretary of State’s Office has disapproved three Dominion products—Assure 1.3, Democracy Suite 5.5, and Democracy Suite 5.5-A—from being used anywhere within the state.

Canada

Dominion’s systems are implemented nationwide across Canada, offering optical scan paper ballot tabulation solutions for provincial elections in Ontario and New Brunswick. The company also provides ballot counting and voting platforms for leadership contests of major political parties such as the Liberal Party of Canada, Conservative Party of Canada, and Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party.

Ontario initially introduced Dominion tabulators in select municipalities during the 2006 municipal elections. In New Brunswick’s 2014 provincial elections, 763 tabulators were deployed; however, reporting delays occurred due to unrelated third-party software problems. Calls for manual recounts came from the Progressive Conservatives and People’s Alliance; subsequent reviews in seven ridings confirmed results with minimal vote differences.

For the June 2018 provincial election, Elections Ontario utilized Dominion tabulators at half of all polling locations. Dominion technology was also widely adopted during Ontario’s 2018 municipal elections, particularly for online voting platforms. Nonetheless, 51 municipalities encountered service interruptions when Dominion’s colocation provider imposed an unauthorized bandwidth restriction amid peak voting traffic, causing delays. To address this, affected municipalities extended polling hours—Greater Sudbury prolonged voting by an additional 24 hours and withheld results until the evening of October 23.

2020 U.S. presidential election

After the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump, his legal team, and right-wing commentators propagated baseless claims rooted in the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems had been compromised to delete or redirect millions of votes from Trump to Joe Biden. Although an internal memo prepared by Trump’s campaign within days found no evidence supporting these allegations, Trump continued to promote them through pro-Trump media outlets such as One America News Network and referenced a misattributed Edison Research report. Edison Research denied producing any such report and confirmed there was no proof of voter fraud.

Unsubstantiated accusations linking Dominion to the Clinton family or Democratic Party were also circulated but were debunked by election specialists, government authorities, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). On November 12, 2020, CISA publicly affirmed there was no evidence that any voting system deleted, lost, or altered votes during the election process.

Rudy Giuliani falsely asserted that Dominion employed software created by rival company Smartmatic—allegedly founded by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez—and claimed Dominion transmitted voting data to foreign countries. Smartmatic denied any ownership or affiliation with Dominion and threatened legal action against media outlets disseminating these falsehoods. Fox News subsequently aired segments refuting these claims while Newsmax retracted similar allegations following legal pressure. Dominion demanded retractions from former Trump attorney Sidney Powell and others; meanwhile, Trump’s legal team retained documents anticipating litigation efforts.

Dennis Montgomery, a software developer, promoted a fabricated story alleging a government supercomputer switched votes from Trump to Biden—a claim echoed by Sidney Powell on Fox Business despite CISA director Christopher Krebs dismissing it as "nonsense." Krebs was dismissed by Trump shortly afterward.

Powell also cited an unverified affidavit claiming Dominion machines internally altered votes; experts clarified that Dominion’s ballot marking devices solely print voter selections for manual deposition into ballot boxes.

This misinformation campaign resulted in harassment and death threats directed at Dominion employees. QAnon affiliate Ron Watkins posted deceptive videos falsely accusing a Dominion staff member of manipulating results; this individual received threats including a noose left outside his residence. Eric Coomer, Dominion’s director of product strategy and security, went into hiding due to safety concerns. The company reported spending $565,000 on security measures as a consequence.

Election technology experts characterized many accusations against Dominion as either misinformation or deliberate disinformation. During Germany’s 2021 federal election, far-right users on Telegram repeated unfounded claims of Dominion fraud despite its technology not being used there.

In September 2022, officials in Fulton County, Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit alleging that a Python script infected a Dominion voting machine connected to an external system in Canada; however, this lawsuit was dismissed in September 2023.

Defamation litigation

The trial for the Newsmax defamation case was scheduled for September 2024. On April 9, 2025, Judge Eric Davis of the Delaware Superior Court found Newsmax responsible for disseminating false and defamatory statements concerning the 2020 presidential election; however, a jury is still tasked with determining the amount of damages. This partial ruling in favor of Dominion led to a 10% decline in Newsmax’s stock value.

Coomer case

Eric Coomer, who served as Dominion’s director of product strategy and security, initiated a defamation lawsuit in Colorado on December 22, 2020, after receiving death threats triggered by baseless accusations. The complaint implicated the Trump campaign, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, activist Joseph Oltmann, along with media outlets OANN, Newsmax, and The Gateway Pundit. Coomer was falsely charged with orchestrating election fraud and was erroneously linked to antifa through a fabricated podcast allegation. In April 2021, Newsmax issued a retraction and apology, conceding that no evidence supported these claims. Powell later acknowledged that no recording of Coomer existed.

Court filings from October 2021 disclosed that Giuliani spent less than an hour reviewing the allegations before publicly accusing Coomer at a press briefing. Powell admitted to having limited understanding of Coomer’s conduct and recognized that her assertions regarding a recording were incorrect.

On December 22, 2021, Coomer lodged a federal defamation lawsuit against far-right broadcaster Clay Clark and his media enterprises for profiting from false election fraud narratives involving him. Subsequently, on April 5, 2022, Coomer filed suit against Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, and his media outlet Frankspeech for ongoing defamatory statements.

In May 2022, Colorado Judge Marie Avery Moses rejected motions to dismiss Coomer’s claims against the Trump campaign, Powell, Giuliani, and others, citing sufficient evidence of actual malice that warrants trial consideration.

By August 2023, OANN and correspondent Chanel Rion reached a settlement with Coomer over defamation allegations.

Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network

Dominion Voting Systems initiated a $1.6 billion defamation action against Fox News Network in March 2021. The suit accused Fox News hosts and guests of making false assertions that Dominion’s voting machines were manipulated to alter the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election against Donald Trump. Fox News defended its coverage as protected under the First Amendment as reporting on statements made by third parties. During pre-trial discovery, Dominion disclosed internal communications from Fox News revealing that key hosts and executives were aware the claims were untrue yet continued broadcasting them.

In March 2023, a Delaware Superior Court judge determined that Fox News’s statements about Dominion were false and permitted the case to proceed to trial to evaluate actual malice. The trial commenced on April 18 with prominent Fox News figures and executives expected to testify. Later on the same day, both parties agreed to settle for $787.5 million.

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