How The Sale Of A Voting Machine Company Could Affect 2026 Midterm Elections

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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Deepa Shivaram.

I cover the White House.

I'm Miles Parks.

I cover voting.

And Colorado Public Radio's Benta Birkland is here with us today.

Hi, Benta.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Of course.

So today on the show, we are talking about the transformation of Dominion Voting Systems.

That's a company that provides ballot counting machines and was at the center of some election-related conspiracy theories in 2020.

The company was recently sold and has been renamed Liberty Vote.

So we're going to start just with that.

Miles, remind us what this controversy was surrounding Dominion in 2020.

Yeah, I feel like most people, if they've heard of an election voting system company at all, they've probably heard of Dominion.

There were any number of conspiracy theories following Donald Trump's loss in 2020 that said everything from the company was somehow involved involved in Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, that the software in it was switching votes from Republicans to Democrats.

The bottom line is that the various conspiracy theories around this company after 2020, none of them were ever proven true, to the point that in the last couple of years, we've seen some massive defamation lawsuit settlements that have kind of proved that point.

Fox News settled with the company for almost $800 million.

Newsmax also settled with the company for $67 million.

So the amount of money that was changing hands here related to these defamation suits kind of of points to the consequences that come from spreading election lies because of how much money has changed hands as a result of those lies, too.

And this guy, Scott Leindecker, who bought Dominion Voting Systems, has rebranded it now as Liberty Vote, he announced it with an open letter on the website and a press release that used some very,

some would call it partisan language that seemed geared specifically at people who have doubts about elections.

You know, the first line of the press release said, as of today, Dominion is gone.

Leindecker wrote, we are turning the page and beginning the vital work of restoring faith in American elections, kind of alluding to the idea that there is not already faith or that there's some issue here.

And so a lot of people were very concerned about that.

Some clerks were not in the loop on this sale, that many of the clerks who use this voting equipment in their counties found out about it from reading it in the media.

That also...

led to some consternation because they're seeing this partisan appearing press release.

And counties are vendors of these machines.

So they work with these companies a lot.

you know they do updates they come out and check the equipment to them be kind of blindsided by this sale and wonder what's going on they had a lot of questions and i was kind of taken aback honestly by how the company has communicated with the clerks themselves now that the sale has become public because i think that's going to be part of this story as we see how the election denial community takes in this sale.

You know, he put out this press release that indicated that there was some sort of transformation coming for this company.

But then I just want to read you, we got a hold of an email that the company reps sent to clerks in Georgia that said, feel assured that Liberty Vote shares the same values as Dominion, same team, same support, new name.

And so you kind of have two different stories being told, one to the public, that Dominion is gone and that there's some big transformation here.

And then another story being told to the clerks, which is basically like, don't freak out, nothing's actually changing.

And so I think, I don't know, I just, it's going to be really interesting to see how both those stories play to their separate audiences.

Okay, so the guy who bought Dominion voting, what is his story?

I mean, why did he make this purchase?

What's the thing behind the press release?

You know, it's interesting.

He's a Republican former election official, actually, from St.

Louis, Missouri, who, after he was an election official, he started a company called No Inc.

that has now become the largest vendor of voter check-in technology.

You know, a lot of people might be familiar when you go to your polling place and they check you in now in many places on a tablet that can do a lot of the records keeping that was previously done on paper.

He started that company.

It's become very successful and now is buying into vote tabulation equipment.

I should also note that we reached out for comment as part of this story, and he didn't get back to us.

But the mixture of the fact that this press release had this language, and then the fact that he was previously a Republican, I think has already started.

You can see the beginnings of some left-leaning conspiracy theorizing about this sale.

So what actually has changed here?

Is it just the name, or is it more than that?

Practically, not a lot really has changed.

So for states like Colorado, and I think more than half the states use Dominion voting systems, have contracts with Dominion, those contracts are multi-year.

So those contracts will still be in place for the midterm election.

And the laws that states and counties use to run elections, those still exist.

So I think on the ground, we aren't going to see a lot of change.

I did talk to a Democratic clerk about this out of Boulder, Colorado, Molly Fitzpatrick.

And she said that's one thing she's really trying to let people know that the post-election audits and the things that make sure the vote is accurate, that's going to keep happening as normal.

And she thinks the biggest risk is that people think this sale is a bigger change than it actually is.

And she doesn't want people to spread disinformation about it.

So that's one of the things that I'm just trying to really communicate to people is that our system is still secure.

We are still in control of our system.

It would take multiple bad actors working together and breaking multiple security protocols and multiple laws in order to do something nefarious on the system.

That has not changed.

I mean, for both of you, it was people who cover voting.

Does this strike you as very odd?

Oh, I mean, it was shocking, right?

I mean, Bento, when I read the press release, I had never really seen anything like it.

And I mean, I think it seems like the clerks were also struck by that.

They were.

I mean, I think the word we used was he's capitalizing, it appears to be on this election denialism.

But clerks in Colorado have spoken on the phone with him in some cases multiple times.

The CEO has talked to them privately.

They feel very assured that he has this long track record in election administration in St.

Louis.

So

we'll just have to wait and see.

One clerk said, look, our contract is not up for a few years, and I want to see how things evolve.

And if we have to switch vendors, we'll switch vendors.

All right, we're going to take a quick break here, and we'll be back in a moment.

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And we're back.

And we've been talking about the recent sale of Dominion Voting, which is now rebranded as Liberty Vote.

And Miles, I mean, with private companies like Liberty Vote, I mean, they're playing a major role in elections here.

What kind of oversight or transparency exists when it comes to local contracts that Liberty Vote would have?

Well, this is really interesting because I do think we have to zoom out for a second.

And I always like to remember, not everyone is thinking about elections every moment of every single day.

And like, when I know, right?

My mind.

But I know, me and Benta are.

But when we're talking about election technology and dominion and them counting votes they are counting you know in more than 98 of the country votes on paper ballots that then in these jurisdictions in colorado and georgia they're using tabulators to then count the paper ballots but when i talk to election security experts what they say is like skepticism of these sort of companies that are helping out with equipment is actually pretty natural part of democracy.

And if you have really good audits in place to be able to double check the technology, then you can kind of get the benefits.

You know, research has found that vote tabulators, electronic vote tabulators, are much faster and much more accurate than just doing it with human beings.

But then on the back end, after you've done that for unofficial results, to be able to get those results out quickly, if you can count them by hand with people, then you can confirm their accuracy and make sure they weren't doing the things that they were accused of doing, you know, stealing votes or switching things.

I was talking to an expert, Doug Jones, who's a retired computer science professor at the University of Iowa, and here's how he put it.

Radical transparency is really required in the world of elections.

Anything less is doing a disservice.

So that radical transparency means that the ownership of the company should not matter.

He quoted another professor, a Stanford professor, David Dill, who said that if we're doing elections right, the devil himself could make the voting systems and we could still hold an honest election.

You know, I just, that one like struck with struck me all.

It's so incredible, that concept that we should question things.

Exactly.

Like a little bit of skepticism.

A little bit of healthy skepticism.

As long as you're willing to then look at the audits and say, okay, no, this was proven true.

Wow.

That is so fascinating, though, because at the same time, we have to have this conversation about over skepticism, right?

And how that leads to conspiracy theories and misinformation.

I think this political climate we're in makes healthy skepticism even more challenging.

Because if people do have legitimate questions, it's kind of like branded as a conspiracy.

Yeah, that's tough.

I'm curious, though, for both of you.

I mean, as we head into 2026, midterm elections are coming up, are there there current conspiracy theories that are growing right now about these voting systems?

Or what are people saying that they might expect for the next election?

One thing I will note is that there's a lot of worry as the press release went out and, you know, he's a Republican who bought this company.

Is this a GOP takeover of this elections company or something like that?

We have not seen election conspiracy theories take off to the same degree on the left so far as on the right.

And a big reason for that is because candidates and people with big megaphones on the left have not really echoed them in the same way.

So we'll see them pop up.

I'll see them on my Twitter feed every once in a while, but we haven't seen them kind of mainstreamed in the same way they have on the right because of people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk parroting them and things like that.

So I think that's going to be the biggest thing to watch in 2026 is seeing whether candidates themselves kind of pick up on some of this stuff to try to explain away their losses.

So Benja, are there concerns that the sale of Dominion voting is increasing mistrust among more liberal voters?

The clerks I've I've talked to are very concerned that this sale doesn't lead to any disinformation on the left.

And I spoke with a clerk, Tiffany Lee, and she's from La Plata County, which is in the southwestern corner of Colorado.

And she said she's already started hearing from voters in her area who are liberal very worried about what the sale of Dominion could mean.

Yes, is this a, you know, GOP word

take over?

Are elections going away?

What's happening?

You know, that's probably one of the biggest questions I've overall gotten is, are we going to continue to have elections?

That's powerful to hear someone say that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, another thing I've heard that I think is pretty interesting is like remembering that like this is a for-profit company.

And if you are buying a for-profit company like Dominion, you know, what choice do you have?

If this company has been surrounded by all of this controversy and these doubts, you know, one state voting official told me that basically this is just business for Scott Leindecker and that he is hoping that by rebranding it kind of with the election skeptics in mind, we'll help him be able to sell it to conservative jurisdictions over the next few years.

And so I think in that way, it's not as scary as much as just like, oh,

he's just trying to make money, right?

And I guess that's, I mean, that is less scary if there are audits that confirm the results still.

And like, if it is just a business tactic, I think that...

oddly enough has made some clerks feel better that it seems to be just a marketing tactic as opposed to a real change in the core of the company's values.

That's fascinating.

Well, Benta, I mean, Colorado, there's sort of a two-fold situation going on here because Colorado is known for particularly strong audits in their elections, which is something that, you know, helps increase transparency and things like that.

But at the same time, it's also a state that's been one of the epicenters of election disinformation.

How do you square that?

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the reasons Colorado became an epicenter of so much election miss and disinformation is because Dominion Voting Systems was headquartered in Denver.

And Liberty Vote will also maintain its offices in Denver and its staffing levels in Denver.

So that kind of brought us into the whole situation because Colorado is a blue state, not a swing state like Georgia.

But it has been this ongoing challenge for election officials.

from across the political spectrum to continually push back against these false claims.

I don't think there's any one thing that's going to gain everyone's trust.

I think, you know, as Miles pointed out, checking the paper ballot vote against the machine tally, having those really robust audits showing that it's accurate is a huge thing

but you know we've seen these levels of distrust persist

And to that point, even in July of this year, there was a man in southwest Colorado.

He was arrested for firebombing the county clerk's office.

He targeted the room where the Dominion voting machines were stored.

He'd publicly spoken out in meetings about not trusting Dominion, Dominion freaking the election, and he allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail in this voting machine room, and the machines were on fire, and it destroyed the office.

So, you know, just a random time in July just shows that this is still on the minds of a lot of people.

And I think we can expect it to only continually ramp up as we head into the midterm election cycle.

Wow.

All right.

We're going to leave it there for today.

Thank you, Becha, for joining us.

Thanks so much for having me.

I'm Deepa Shivaram.

I cover the White House.

I'm Miles Parks.

I cover voting.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

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