2024-10-30 update. Private equity firm Staple Street Capital owned Dominion Voting in 2019–2021. SSC’s founding investor and an operating executive board member was William E. Kennard. The Obama-Biden administration appointed Mr. Kennard Ambassador to the EU in 2009, following his donation and bundling of more than $500k toward Obama’s election in 2008.
The uncertainty surrounding the title stems from Mr. Kennard’s attempts to conceal his affiliation with Dominion Voting. In 2017, SSC dissolved and reorganized into one or two companies with similar names. Here, SSC includes all those companies. His role in the SSC was also described as “a member of the Operating Executive Board of Directors of Staple Street”.
Mr. Kennard was a member of Secretary of State John Kerry’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, a board member of the New York Times, AT&T, and other corporations. He has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of AT&T since November 6, 2020.
You can read this complaint in a lawsuit against Dominion et al. From the complaint:
“Kennard has personally donated nearly $90,000 to a combination of Barack Obama,
the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and bundled more than half a million dollars in donations to the Obama campaign.”
H/t to Tom.
2020-11-15 update: since 2009, Dominion Voting Systems operated from 215 Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON, M5T 2C7,Canada – an office space of the radical Tides Foundation. This building houses (or housed until a few months ago) a Toronto office of Tides Canada and a Tides’ incubation space for leftist groups.
Dominion Voting Systems Corp. is the Canadian company behind the ballot switching software.
Dominion was founded in 2003, with a mission to provide electronic voting systems friendly for progressives. Because of such partisanship, it languished with almost no customers for the next 5-6 years, until the Obama administration came to power. In 2010, the Obama administration confiscated electronic voting systems assets (software, intellectual property, manufacturing tools, customer base, etc.) from two established American companies, and gave them to Dominion. At the same time, Dominion got some employees and assets from a foreign EVS company, tied to Hugo Chavez.
Its software has been used by some 40% of the voters in this elections, mostly by Democrat-controlled states and election commissions. Apparently, no protections were put in place against ballot switching, deletion, or creation. According to Dominion’s own website, it software was used in “battleground” states and the largest Democrat states, including MI, GA, AZ, NV, NM, CO, AK, UT, NJ, CA, NY.
Dominion Early History
Dominion Voting System Corp., was founded in Canada in 2002-2003 with an openly progressive mission – to develop electronic voting software which would not just process ballots, but also “mobilize voters” – a popular slogan of the Left.
It is not clear what products or services the company has developed. It found almost no buyers, until Obama was elected in 2008. In 2009, New York ordered a few dozens of systems from it. In 2010, Obama’s DOJ (Holder – Mueller) took the EVS unit, purchased from Diebold, away from the market leader ES&S, and gave it to Dominion. This gift included the installed base of about 30% of the US electronic voting systems (EVS) market. Within two weeks, Dominion also acquired Sequoia, which was formally spun from Smartmatic, but ties between these two companies remained. Smartmatic is a UK based EVS vendor, whose software was used by Chavez to “win” the Venezuelan referendum in 2004. Smartmatic’s unit Sequoia faced troubles in the US. Those troubles quickly ended when its assets were purchased by Dominion.
Thus, the new Democratic party created a pocket pet corporation, gave it the lion share of the US electronic voting systems market. Dominion is ideologically aligned with the Democratic Party, owes it everything it has, dependent on it for most of its business, and needs it in power to avoid prosecution for corruption. Sounds like a conflict of interest.
Electronic Voting
Using electronic voting machines has always been controversial. The pros for electronic voting – saving working time of the ballot counters – are minuscule. The cons however are infinite. Because software is inherently complex, non-transparent, and volatile, there is always a risk of significant errors. There are also suspicions and doubts about election results. The complexity of software and hardware on which voting machines run has been continually increasing, aggravating these concerns.
At the beginning of 2009, there were four major US EVS suppliers: ES&S, Premier (a unit of Nixdorf-Diebold), Sequoia (linked to Smartmatic), and Hart Intercivic. The market size was a few hundred million dollars a year and growing. EVS vendors competed among themselves and against traditional pen and paper voting. There were no barriers to entry for other competitors, other than government’s regulations.
Electronic voting, which sounded like a good idea in the 1980s is so no more. Electronic voting machines and their vendors were under criticism for many years. In 2007-2008, this criticism materialized in the SEC, DOJ, and states lawsuits against the voting machines vendors. Diebold was catching flack for having a prominent Republican party supporter among their top executives. It spun its EVS unit as a separate company Premier, and was looking for a buyer. The existing vendors were burdened with liabilities, including DOJ investigations. This opened up an opportunity for the Obama administration.
Technical Vulnerabilities of EVS Systems
The voting software developers can easily insert code, changing numbers in favor of or against one candidate. No hacking is necessary. The malicious code can be designed to pass tests and to be triggered only at the time of a real election, automatically or manually. Both case are possible even the the machine is disconnected from the internet and has no ordinary I/O devices. The malicious code can be activated manually in real time by inserting a ballot or another paper with a pre-defined QR or image code. An audit of the source code is necessary, but not sufficient. Dominion software runs on Windows, and the malicious code can be hidden in any part of the operating system. Malicious code can be hidden in the firmware, too.
If a state wants to take risks and to rely on testing and the source code audit, they should be conducted with the participation of technically competent representatives of both parties. If the system passes testing and auditing, the machine image must be securely stored. All supplied machines must have exactly the same hardware and the software as the audited system.
As far as I know, thorough tests and source code audits are conducted very rarely, if at all. Further, the vendors are not required to use only the audited image, and are allowed to update the software almost at will. That means that election commissions are forced to blindly trust the vendors. Blind trust is always wrong and invites abuse. But even “trust but verify” is applicable only to trustworthy vendors. Dominion Voting is the opposite of trustworthy.
The only real solution to the vulnerability of EVS is not to use them at all. Manual ballot counting has no software vulnerabilities, and is much cheaper. Virginia appears to be the only state that decided to use only manual ballots.
How Dominion went from nothing to everything in two weeks
In September 2009, ES&S acquired Premier [8], without any objections from the DOJ. But in March 2010, the Obama’s DOJ (Eric Holder – Robert Mueller) forced ES&S to “sell” Premier’s assets to Dominion, but to keep its liabilities. In addition, ES&S was forced to license to Dominion some of its software, in perpetuity and free of charge. The pretext for the DOJ action was antitrust.
The “Sale”
This is how the assets transfer was structured, per DOJ [1] (March 8, 2010).
“WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice announced today that it will require Election Systems & Software (ES&S) to divest voting equipment systems assets it purchased in September 2009 from Premier Election Solutions Inc. in order to restore competition. The assets to be divested include the means to produce all versions of Premier’s hardware, software and firmware used to record, tabulate, transmit or report votes, including the Assure 1.2 system, and a license to better serve disabled voters. The department said that today’s settlement will restore competition in voting equipment systems in the United States… “
“In order to restore competition” sounds funny, because the same document also required ES&S to not compete against the buyer (with exceptions).
“… the acquisition substantially reduced competition as it combined the two largest providers of systems used to tally votes in federal, state and local elections in the United States. ES&S’s acquisition of Premier made ES&S the provider of more than 70 percent of the voting equipment systems in the United States. The department said that because the cash value of the deal between ES&S and Premier was $5 million, far below the mandatory reporting threshold for mergers under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, the department’s investigation of the transaction did not begin until the companies had combined their assets and dismantled many of Premier’s operating divisions.”
Sounds like a poor pretext. The DOJ has been investigating these companies even before the merger, and was aware of it. Further, the DOJ does not allege that the merger has not been reported. Even so, why not simply demand unrolling the merger? The DOJ provides a poor excuse to demand divestiture rather than a normal unrolling.
“Under the terms of the settlement, ES&S must divest all of the intellectual property associated with all versions –past, present and in development –of the Premier voting equipment systems to another company. ES&S also must divest all Premier tooling and fixed assets, as well as inventory of parts and components. In order to allow the divestiture buyer to better serve disabled voters, ES&S must also grant a fully paid-up, irrevocable, perpetual license to use the AutoMARK, ES&S’s ballot marking device for which Premier had a limited license prior to the acquisition. The buyer of the divestiture assets will have the right to modify and improve both Premier products and the AutoMARK.”
Thus, the Obama’s DOJ stripped ES&S not only acquired Premier assets, but also coerced it to license rights to its pre-merger product.
“ES&S must sell the divestiture assets to a buyer approved by the department.”
This is not selling. This is confiscation multiplied by corruption.
“The settlement prohibits ES&S from bidding on new voting equipment system contracts using the Premier equipment. [transferred to Dominion]”
Wait, didn’t they say that the purpose was to increase the competition?
“The department also required that ES&S grant the divestiture buyer an opportunity to compete to provide services to Premier customers currently under contract with ES&S, giving customers the option to switch to the divestiture buyer or to remain with ES&S … ES&S also must provide access to knowledgeable Premier employees and agree to offer a supply agreement to allow the divestiture buyer time to establish its own manufacturing of voting equipment systems.”
The approved divestiture buyer, Dominion Voting, is not mentioned in this press release. But this quote shows that the DOJ has already determined the “approved buyer,” and knew that it had no manufacturing base.
After the “Sale”
Dominion announced the acquisition of the Diebold products on May 19, 2010 [2] and the acquisition of Sequoia Voting assets on June 4, 2010 [3]. Dominion also hired much of its personnel, probably retaining ties to extremely sketchy Smartmatic. Sequoia/Smartmatic systems had been used in the Venezuela 2004 referendum, which Hugo Chavez “won”. Smartmatic is a British company with Hugo Chavez ties, headed by “Lord” Malloch-Brown (former UN Deputy Secretary-General, UNDP, UNHCR, VP of Soros’ Quantum Fund, and Vice Chair of Soros’ Open Society Foundation) [7], and linked to electoral scandals all over the world [5].
In August 2009 (corrected), the rough breakdown of the EVS market in the US was (per Brad Friedman):
40% ES&S 30% Diebold/Premier 20% Sequoia/Smartmatic 10% Hart Intercivic 0% Dominion Voting
Less than a year later, after the “antitrust” actions of Obama’s DOJ, it became:
50% Dominion 40% ES&S (restricted in competing against Dominion) 10% Hart Intercivic
Thus, the DOJ’s actions did the exact opposite of its words.
An elections system vendor should be non-partisan, in a demonstrable way. Dominion is not just partisan, but hyper-partisan in favor of the Democrat party, or even its pocket vendor.
Dominion has many more ties to the Democrat party and its prominent supporters in the US and abroad, which are not covered in this article.
Software Development in Serbia
Dominion develops much of its software in Belgrade, Serbia. Russia is a close friend to Serbia, if not its only one. If anybody sincerely thought that Putin wanted to hack American elections, their first location of interest would be the offices of Dominion Voting in Belgrade, rather than the Trump Tower in New York.
By the way, Serbian and Russian languages use the Cyrillic alphabet. Most letters have the same Unicode encoding in Serbian and Russian (the Basic Multilingual Plane, range 0410-04FF). If any election officials found Cyrillic text on a Dominion voting machine in 2016, it was probably left by its developers in Serbia.
Remarks
This is the Agreement between Michigan & Dominion, including specs of many Dominion products (PDF, 161 pages). Wi-Fi connection and even a dial up modem are offered as an option.
Some of the companies referenced here as foreign based or foreign originating re-registered in the US.
Dominion Voting Systems Series
Part I
Part II (this)
Part III
Some References
[3b] On Heels of Diebold/Premier Purchase, Canadian Firm Also Acquires Sequoia, Lies About Chavez-Ties in Announcement – contemporary commentary
[4] Marcos warns of ‘another Smartmatic situation’ – Smartmatic was accused of election fraud in the 2016 elections in Philippines
[5] Smartmatic in Wikipedia, November 9, 2020 (not verified)
[6] Sequoia Voting Systems in Wikipedia, November 9, 2020 (not verified)
[7] “Lord” Malloch Brown in Wikipedia, November 8, 2010 (not verified)
[8] Diebold Sells U.S. Elections Systems Business to ES&S, press release, September 3, 2009
[9] Dominion Voting Systems Corp – discussion of Dominion’s ideology and highly partisan offers
One key missing fact is on election day and next the ownership team was listed on home page, the top exec was a man named “william kennard” and had a ambasasator appointment under obama. His name and any reference on the internet by the next day.
Thanks! I have updated the article with this and more information.
Thank you for shining the spotlight on Dominion Voting Systems. As someone who has almost 50+ years of software development experience starting in 1971 from IBM mainframe to Android phone platforms, I am amazed that the current approach to electronic voting in the US was ever approved by any informed, trustworthy, technically proficient citizens. Perhaps that criteria for individuals responsible for decision making was never met and that is the reason it exists in its current form.
All the chatter about protecting proprietary software on Dominion Voting Systems during the past week appears to be nothing more than a deflection excuse to avoid a forensic investigation of potential US election fraud.
So, let’s speculate about the proprietary nature of the purpose and functionality of electronic voting systems. They have one purpose, which is to optically detect the state of the designated vote on a specific area of the paper ballot. The possible three states of the optic circles representing a voter’s submission for one entity (one candidate or proposition) within a possible group (multiple candidates) are: 1) circle filled; 2) circle not filled; and 3) circle partially filled, whether it is intentional or not. Similar to the aphorism, “There’s no CRYING in baseball”, we should consider adopting the following for elections, “There’s no SUBTRACTION in vote counting”.
Here are the three stimulus-response actions for the respective three states of one entity:
1) circle filled … increment counter
2) circle not filled … no action required
3) circle partially filled … reject the ballot; manual determination required
Based on adhering to the rules established for a group (e.g. select 1, select 2, etc.), votes are tallied meaning a counter is incremented by one for a properly marked ballot. When multiple entities are selected, which is greater than the rule for the respective entity (e.g. select 1), the ballot is rejected.
It’s that simple.
By the way, I’m not opposed to electronic voting. But I do wholeheartedly reject any approach which is not open sourced or has no secure chain of custody or verification procedures to protect the integrity of the data as intended by the voter. So, using Democracy Suite EMS software used on the Dominion Voting Systems hardware going forward … hard pass.
If we insist on using unsolicited paper ballots, here’s a suggestion to avoid potential fraud. Serialize each ballot via barcodes. Timestamp and location-stamp each ballot when the ballot is processed. This fully supports a transparent audit of the voting process. You will know BEFORE an election, how many ballots were placed into circulation. In addition, a complete audit is possible based on unique serialized ballots which can be cross-checked by time and location. This would eliminate duplicate ballots.
I don’t have all the answers but I do know the current process has to change for the sake of election integrity and the future prosperity of America.
Excellent post! Thank you.
Just few thougts
…Dominion develops much of its software in Belgrade, Serbia. Russia is a close friend to Serbia…
At the time when ten SW was developing, Serbia had long beenin the hands of Germany and the EU. Which is the same as writing in the hands of Soros and his NGO. Written Serbian is more similar to neighboring Greek than Russian, and this also applies to Cyrillic.
It’s an answered prayer that Dominion got caught…..this is just the tlp of the ice berg……
God will bring everyone of these corrupt people to justice…and they’re are so many…The United States of America 🇺🇸 deserved a fair and balanced election.
Our country was founded on Judeo Christian values…He’s absolutely has pick the exact legal
team to take theses indisputable evidence to the highest court in our land, the Supreme Court…May our Lord find favor with our hand picked attorneys and the hard evidence brought before courts….Our God is so incredibly Sovereign…..
And President Donald J. Trump will be re-elected to a second term….
Truth and Justice will prevail.
In God We Trust,
🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸🙏🇺🇸
Pennsylvania Courts don’t seem to have accepted the “evidence”. Where to, now ?
Amen!
I like the commentary but your references are not references at all. Why haven’t you used the MLA standard? Now I question your validly
What does MLA format have to do with anything that was said in this article. If you have no real information to share then don’t say anything at all.
You have clearly demonstrated your inability to use spelling and grammar check features (Now I question your validly ???) as well as your inability to insert punctuation where required (period missing from last sentence) in proper prose, or, perhaps, it’s just plain laziness surfacing. Whatever the reason may be, I suggest you dispense with the sanctimonious rhetoric regarding standards because you are in no superior position to do so.
Here’s a revision of your text to consider.
I like the commentary. (period…full stop…pie hole, shut!)
Excellent write up AND pertinent comments. Yes, folks. WE-THE PEOPLE, Sovereign Souls from each Sovereign Nation, must muck out our respective Governmental/Political Swamps! Dispel the apathy. Embrace & LIVE those Values acceptable to the Human Race. Deep Peace and Blessings of Strength to all y’all who are engaged in/with this epic correction of our lives AND bringing Dark2Light. Aho. Amen. Aye. Namaste. Capt Rick in Central Texas. WWG1WGA. 2Q2Q.
Thank you so much for your information. Amazing how much we are informed of.
Canada is rooting for you…we have a Biden in power now that must go.
RELEASE THE KRAKEN
I have to thank you for your good work here.. I am using your information to supplement what I have found as well.. Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, has been a partner in DLA Piper.. Lord Nigel Knowles was global chairman of DLA Piper.. Lord Malloch Brown is chairman of Smartmatic and both of these men are principles in SGO which is another Smartmatic linked company.. Lord Malloch Brown has been a top executive with Soros Fund Mangaement and a vice chair of Soros’ Open Society..
Thanks
I may have missed it, but can you please explain the connection with DLA Piper? After all, it could explain why Kamala Harris’ husband was referring to her as the “next POTUS” over a month ago?
Because Biden is obviously suffering dementia, he will have to be declared unfit and KH will be prez, Heaven help us. I just wish OAN was right in that Ukraine was going after Biden.
I want to find out how many other countries are using this equipment and software, New Zealand in particular!!
Yes I would like that same information. Did Singapore use Dominion software for the GE2020? The outcome was far different than public opinion and the bookies…..
I had that exact thought while I was reading this article. The corruption is becoming obvious now.
Send to Sydney Powell, Trump’s lawyer.
Read chapter 9 of Peter Schweizer/ SECRET EMPIRES, “Obama’s best friend.” Just 1 more manipulation.
+100
You should do two corrections in the “After the Sale” part. Instead of 2019 it should be 2009 and the linked author of the article should be Brad Friedman, not Brad Feldman. Other than that great job.
Thanks!
Did it
I am a republican Trump lover, but do wonder: If Dominion was in place 2016, why did they allow Trump to win?
They were blindsided. They might have relied on Comey, Brennan, Strzok and the rest of the Deep State to not allow Trump to win.
the Dems were complacent – in that they had no doubt they would win. Operating in their own world – and with only the ‘deplorables’ outside of that world – they thought they were so wonderful and everyone would see that !
Because Hillary was supposed to win by a 95% margin…the system works best when there is a small 2-to-3% margin so why bother
I heard there was a computer glitch and it didn’t work. This time they tried to force us to vote by mail so they could control the outcome but that didn’t work because we all voted in person by the millions. The virus was used to scare us but that didn’t work either. We don’t live in fear.
I believe that Trump won because he won by so much that their cheating software could not hide it. Why not do that again this year? That is because if Trump wins the Dems will lose all assets, power,etc. They are desperate this year. This will be the END for them when Trump wins the 2020 election.
Because this is a very bold step they actually believed Hilary was going to win. Your question should be why didn’t Hilary demand recounts? They knew Dominion would never corrupt the election for Trump
In 2016 my wife and I worked two different polls on Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Both polls voters reported to us that their R votes were changed to D votes. These particular voters caught the change, but how many did not?
Excellent thank you.
https://thedonald.win/p/11Q8XTgKld/smoking-gun-smote-synthetic-mino/