Trump Supporters Bullied This Ohio County to Dump Dominion Voting Machines for Literally No Reason

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After months of baseless conspiracy theories accusing Dominion Voting Systems of “rigging” the 2020 election, a county in Ohio has rejected a recommendation to buy machines from the company after commissioners received a deluge of angry calls. 

The Stark County Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday to reject a plan to purchase $6.45 million worth of more than 1,400 Dominion Voting Systems machines to administer elections, NPR reported. The purchase had been recommended by the Stark County Board of Elections. 

The move came after the all-Republican board said they were inundated with calls from Trump supporters, who parroted baseless allegations that Dominion participated in a massive electoral fraud scheme that involved foreign governments, Democratic and Republican elected officials, and more. 

“They believe the election was stolen from Trump and we should stand by Trump and the Dominion machines have been known to be hacked," Bill Smith, one of the board’s four commissioners, said at a board meeting in February. "It’s been the most calls I’ve ever received as a county commissioner.”

“I had 17 voicemails in one day,” he added.

Dominion did not immediately return VICE News’ request for comment on Stark County’s decision.

Soon after the election last year, supporters of then-outgoing President Donald Trump began pushing the false conspiracy theory that the election was “rigged” with the help of Dominion Voting Systems, claims which were amplified by Trump until his departure from office. 

Dominion has sued Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, “Kraken” lawyer Sidney Powell and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, seeking $1.3 billion in damages from each defendant, for defamation against the company in their roles  promoting conspiracies about Dominion voting machines. A different voting technology company, Smartmatic, has also sued Powell, Giuliani, Fox and several Fox News and Fox Business hosts for $2.7 billion total. 

Dominion alleges in its lawsuit against Lindell that it has “suffered harm nationwide,” and that the allegations are “putting Dominion’s contracts in more than two dozen states and hundreds of counties and municipalities in jeopardy.” 

On Wednesday, Stark County acknowledged that the claims pushed by Trump and his allies played a role in their decision to reject a contract with the company that had been recommended by the local board of elections.

"Whenever there exists a potential cloud (as acknowledged by the Dominion representative at the February 2, 2021 work session) or public perception or concern regarding a vendor's long-term viability, regardless of the cause or reason, the County must take a vendor's long-term viability into account, as one of many factors it considers, when making a long-term multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded purchase,” the commission said in a resolution adopted Wednesday, which included the rejection of the potential contract. 

Included in the resolution was a cost comparison between Dominion and a competing election tech company, Election Systems & Software. The cost to the county for Dominion would have been nearly $1.6 million less than that estimated cost of the ES&S machines. 

This is not the first case in which conspiracy mongering about Dominion has resulted in a government changing its behavior due to pressure.

Earlier this month, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin dropped an effort to replace the state’s old voting machines, potentially with new Dominion models, after Republican state legislators called for more oversight at the behest of constituents, the Advocate reported.  

“I think unfortunately those folks who are rooted deep in conspiracy theories may not accept what we provide to them in terms of transparency,” Ardoin told the Advocate. “But at the same time it's gotten more folks involved in the process, asking questions. And it is our job to answer these questions and to provide evidence of what we're doing right.”

Last month, Lindell—who released a two-hour movie purporting to document the extent of voter  fraud in the 2020 election—told VICE News that getting sued by Dominion for more than a billion dollars was “a great day for me.”

The claims Lindell has pushed have been thoroughly debunked, and have no basis in reality. 

“Dominion’s trying to bully me into standing down,” Lindell said at the time. “It’s going to backfire on them.”