Dominion Voting Systems has filed another defamation lawsuit, this time against Fox News.According to Business Insider, Dominion has accused Fox of creating and propagating baseless allegations about the company’s involvement in the 2020 general election.Dominion provides voting equipment as well as on-site equipment operators. During the 2020 presidential election, many pro-Trump organizations and individuals accused the company of covertly supporting a Biden victory.When it became apparent that former President Donald Trump had lost the election, conspiracy theories about Dominion began emerging.One of the more prevalent right-wing conspiracy theories accused Dominion of “flipping” votes for Trump into votes for Joe Biden.Dominion, said conspiracy theorists, had already perfected a flip-and-switch system in collaboration with the regime of deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.Interestingly, that theory is contingent upon Dominion being owned by another elections technology, Smartmatic.

A 2016 image of a ballot drop box in Boulder County, Colorado. Image via Wikimedia Commons via Flickr/user:pasa47 . (CCA-BY-2.0).

However, Smartmatic does not own Dominion.During and after the election, Fox News provided air-time to hosts and guests who continued to propagate the conspiracy theory. In its lawsuit, Dominion accuses Fox of “recklessly [disregarding] the truth” in its efforts to garner views and foster conservative outrage.Dominion notes that, as Fox and its allies continued to spread rumors, company executives and employees began receiving death threats from Trump supporters.“The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” Dominion attorneys wrote in court documents. “Fox sold a false story of election fraud n order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process.”“If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does,” the lawsuit states.Fox has, in the past, pushed back against any and all allegations that its anchors and hosts defamed election companies—including both Dominion and Smartmatic, the latter of which has filed its own lawsuit against Fox News.In a response to Smartmatic’s claim, Fox asserted the constitutional right of its broadcasters.“This lawsuit strikes at the heart of the news media’s First Amendment mission to inform on matters of pubic concern,” Fox lawyers wrote.In a media release, Fox has maintained that it is “proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court.”Tom Clare, a Dominion attorney, told Axios that the company is nevertheless considering separate lawsuits against Fox personalities. The initial suit against Fox, notes Axios, has already named as defendants Fox hosts Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanne Pirro.Clare also suggested that Dominion could launch a lawsuit against Donald Trump himself.“We haven’t ruled out anyone,” Clare told Axios.“If the evidence leads us to believe that we’ve got strong claims,” he added, “that’s something we’re going to look at.”

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