arizona news

Has been updated: March 31, 2023 at 2:54 PM

PHOENIX (AP) — In Arizona’s most populous county, elected officials are prepared for what might happen when the time comes to replace their $2 million-a-year contracts for voting equipment.

Officials in Maricopa County, including Phoenix, said they have no concerns about the current vendor, Dominion Voting Systems. The problem is, the company has been entangled in a web of conspiracy theories since his 2020 presidential election. Conspiracy theories have undermined public confidence in U.S. elections among conservative voters, called for banning voting machines in some places, and sparked death threats against election officials across the country. Country.

Maricopa County Rector Steven Litcher, a Republican elected in 2020, said, “If I were to reenlist the Dominion, I would be concerned for my own safety.” It has become a company that is one of the most demonized brands in the United States or the world.”

This sudden reversal of fortunes for the Colorado-based voting machine company is at the heart of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News, which is set to go to trial in mid-April. Dominion alleges that Fox defamed the company by repeatedly airing false claims about its voting machines and software. Court records and testimony show that some Fox hosts and executives didn’t believe the allegations pushed by former President Donald Trump and his allies since the 2020 election, but they feared losing viewers. Concerned, he continued broadcasting.

Fox claimed the network was reporting on the newsworthy allegations because Trump and his Republican allies challenged his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. It overestimates its value, says it cannot be harmed for the amount it is arguing, and downplays security concerns about the machine. The document claims to show that Dominion is in a solid financial position.

“There is no merit to this lawsuit,” Fox said in a statement.

Dominion has presented evidence showing lost contracts and business opportunities over the past two years. In Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey and Ohio counties, officials in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Tennessee counties cited incorrect information as the reason for terminating contracts.

In a report Dominion filed in November as part of the lawsuit, one expert said the company lost about $16 million in profits from customers who terminated their contracts early or decided not to renew them. I’m guessing.

By the same estimate, Dominion has already lost $72.3 million. This includes potential contract extensions, additional equipment sales and service agreements with existing customers, and new business.

Overall, this expert estimated the company’s value had decreased by $920 million. This includes estimated taxes that the company must pay if damages are awarded. Experts also estimated further future lost opportunities that have not yet been made public.

Dominion spokeswoman Stephanie Wallstrom said, “Before Fox started spreading and supporting baseless lies about Dominion’s voting machines, Dominion was a valuable, fast-growing company and had plans to implement expansion plans. There is evidence that it did,” he said. statement.

The company’s challenge is far from over, as conspiracies about the last presidential election permeate much of the Republican Party. Trump supporters continue to travel the country, meet with community groups, and hold forums to promote election conspiracies.

Some county officials say they respond to voter concerns as justification for refusing to certify election results, alleging they facilitated attempts to revoke or ban voting equipment certification. .

“People are not acting rationally,” said Lawrence Norden, an election security expert at the Brennan Center for Justice. “They are canceling contracts at a great cost to taxpayers.”

Not included in Dominion’s expert report are recent actions involving Shasta County, Calif., where the oversight board terminated its contract with Dominion early. At its January meeting, the board cited a loss of public confidence in the machines used to tally hand-marked paper ballots in counties.

In 2020, Trump won Shasta County with 65% of the vote.

“The Dominion must prove to me that we are having free and fair elections,” said Patrick Henry Jones, chairman of the supervisory board who led the effort to terminate the deal. “Just because we all sat here and got elected doesn’t mean we’ve had free and fair elections every time.”

The board is currently pursuing a plan to count ballots manually, but experts believe the process will be less accurate and time consuming in all but the smallest jurisdictions. An ally of Trump, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has pledged to help efforts to get rid of voting machines.

In an interview, Lindell said he stands ready to cover the costs of any lawsuits Shasta County may face.

“They are well within their rights to go to paper ballots and handcounts,” Lindell said. ”

Elected Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Kathy Darling Allen defended the voting machine and accused “unproven conspiracy theories” for undermining the county’s election system and staff. She warned the county was in danger of not being able to hold an election.

“Their actions endangered the security of our election and created a dangerous precedent for outsiders to undermine our election at the county level,” Darling Allen wrote in testimony to Congress this month. rice field.

She estimates that hand-counting every ballot containing 50 contests in a presidential election would cost at least $1.6 million and would require the employment of nearly 1,300 temporary workers. . In the county, she has over 111,000 registered voters.

Election security experts were concerned that the market for voting machines was already restricted ahead of the 2020 elections, dominated by three companies. One of Dominion’s competitors, Election Systems & Software, has not reported contract cancellations, but has been forced to defend its reputation amidst the voting machine conspiracy.

At a recent hearing, Fox attorney Erin Murphy told the Delaware Superior Court judge presiding over the defamation lawsuit that Dominion had a “genuine speculation problem” regarding its claim for damages. said Dominion’s lost earnings claim appears to be based on the presumption that it would have won all the contracts it sought had it not been for Fox’s coverage of the fraudulent election.

This ignores the fact that Dominion’s rivals sometimes offer lower bids or more attractive technology, Murphy said. Fox has reported internal threats, including a chat in which one of his Dominion employees said, “Our product sucks,” and a federal advisory outlining potential vulnerabilities reported in Dominion’s systems. Emphasis on communication.

Maricopa County, Arizona has been at the forefront of conspiracy theories about the Dominion. The Republican-controlled Congress will use its subpoena powers to seize county voting machines in 2021 and hire a company run by Trump supporters to probe them for evidence that the machines were compromised. Did. The company found nothing, and Doug Logan, who oversaw the project, admitted in a personal text message that surfaced in an unrelated lawsuit that “Dominion’s machines are actually very accurate.” , distrust is deep-rooted.

Waldeep Singh, Dominion’s executive vice president of sales, filed in court that the conditions in Arizona make it impossible to do business in Arizona. He accused the conspiracy theory of ruining the company’s chances of winning business in Yavapai County, a conservative rural county north of Phoenix.

“What I can say is that based on my experience and the trajectory of my time in Arizona, we were headed in a very positive direction.

Now he said, “I don’t think I will win again in Arizona.”

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