Fox News is being sued by Dominion Voting for more than a billion dollars over false claims during the 2020 presidential election.
Dominion Voting Systems, a voting technology company in the United States, has filed a USD $1.6 billion (AUD $2.1 billion) defamation lawsuit against the right-wing channel Fox News. Dominion claim that the network spread false claims about the company’s voting machines so that the network could improve the channel’s ratings.
Dominion’s lawsuit follows after last year when Fox News reported false claims that Dominion had changed votes with algorithms in voting machines in Venezuela. The lawsuit presented by Dominion’s representatives claims that the technology company repeatedly attempted to set the record straight, but was ignored by the broadcaster.
The voting technology company insists that Fox News “sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purpose, severely injuring Dominion in the process”, according to the Associated Press’ copy of the lawsuit.
Fox News defended their coverage of the election, telling The Independent, “Fox News Media 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.”
Dominion hit back at Fox News, a network that features multiple prominent pro-Trump voices, saying they pushed the false claims during the election to explain the former president’s loss to Joe Biden. Following the election, the network lost a large number of viewers due to the belief Fox was not being supportive enough of the Republican Party. Dominion’s lawsuit states that the behaviour of the Fox network differs greatly from other media outlets.
If Dominion wins (they won’t), it could expose the rest of the media to defamation suits. Imagine having elections that aren’t driven entirely by false narratives from institutions that lie and manipulate for profit.
— Aaron Douglas (@aaron_douglas) March 26, 2021
Dominion is the second election technology company to file a lawsuit against Fox over their 2020 election coverage. Early this year in February, Smartmatic sued Fox for USD $2.7 billion (AUD 3.5 billion). The company made similar claims to Dominion against the network.
Experts and government officials have repeatedly confirmed after the election that there was no evidence of fraud. Despite around 50 lawsuits filed in multiple swing states lost by Donald Trump in an attempt to overturn the election, the Department of Justice confirmed in December that they had found no evidence of voter fraud during the election.
The majority of the legal challenges from Trump and his allies were dismissed by judges, including two tossed by the Supreme Court – which hosts three justices nominated by Trump.
Lawyers representing Dominion say they have not yet filed lawsuits against specific media personalities at Fox, however, this isn’t to say they won’t in the future. Dominion has also sued Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and the CEO of MyPillow over the claims.
