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Whereas talking at a city corridor within the swing state of Pennsylvania Thursday, tech CEO Elon Musk repeated false conspiracy theories claiming that voting machines rig elections — an assertion that has been repeatedly debunked because it was pushed within the wake of the 2020 election by these looking for to overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss.
“I am a technologist, I do know quite a bit about computer systems,” Musk informed the group through the occasion. “And I am like, the very last thing I’d do is belief a pc program, as a result of it is simply too straightforward to hack.”
Musk, who owns the social media platform X, has emerged as one of many Trump’s fiercest supporters, showing with him at a rally earlier this month and pouring $75 million into his PAC — making Musk one of many largest political spenders of the 2024 cycle.
Extra just lately, Musk has launched into a talking tour round Pennsylvania.
Whereas on the stage Thursday evening, Musk particularly talked about the voting machine firm Dominion — which final 12 months sued Fox Information for defamation over false claims that it engaged in a vote-rigging conspiracy, then agreed to a landmark $787 million settlement with the community.
In his feedback, Musk named Dominion whereas linking voting machines to losses for Republicans in Philadelphia and Arizona, saying, “There’s at all times a kind of query of like, say, the Dominion voting machines. It’s bizarre that the, you recognize, I feel they’re utilized in Philadelphia and in Maricopa County, however not in a whole lot of different locations.”
“Would not that appear like a heck of a coincidence?” Musk stated, whereas calling for states across the nation to “solely do paper ballots, hand-counted.”
Elon Musk, Chief Govt Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and proprietor of X appears on through the Milken Convention 2024 World Convention Periods at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., Could 6, 2024.
David Swanson/Reuters/FILE
Within the wake of the 2020 election, Dominion filed a number of defamation lawsuits in opposition to a number of supporters of Trump and a few media retailers who falsely accused the corporate of adjusting votes within the election.
In a ruling in Dominion’s defamation case in opposition to Fox Information, which settled in 2023, the choose overseeing the case wrote, “The proof developed on this civil continuing demonstrates that [it is] CRYSTAL clear that not one of the statements referring to Dominion concerning the 2020 election are true.”
In an announcement launched following Musk’s remark this week, Dominion identified the inaccuracies in Musk’s feedback, together with the actual fact they do not function in Philadelphia and that almost all jurisdictions do use paper ballots.
“Reality: Dominion doesn’t serve Philadelphia County. Reality: Dominion’s voting techniques are already based mostly on voter verified paper ballots. Reality: Hand counts and audits of such paper ballots have repeatedly confirmed that Dominion machines produce correct outcomes. These usually are not issues of opinion. They’re verifiable info,” a Dominion spokesperson stated.
On the web site of Maricopa County, officers additionally acknowledged that voting machines within the 2020 election had been correct, writing {that a} hand rely after the election “discovered zero variances between hand rely outcomes and the Dominion tabulation gear.”
Musk’s feedback this week come after Dominion earlier this month stated the corporate is shut being attentive to those that proceed to unfold false details about them, and that they’re “totally ready to defend our firm.”
“We’re carefully monitoring claims across the 2024 election. We strongly encourage individuals to depend upon verified, credible sources of election data — sources who can totally clarify the numerous layers of bodily, operational, and technical safeguards that exist to guard the integrity of our elections, together with voting with paper ballots that may be audited and recounted,” Dominion stated in an announcement in early October, earlier than Musk made his feedback.
“Past that, we stay totally ready to defend our firm and our clients in opposition to lies and to hunt accountability from those that unfold them,” Dominion stated.
Based on the Brennan Middle for Justice, a nonprofit suppose tank, “almost all voters now stay in jurisdictions with voting techniques which have a paper document of each vote.”
The middle stated that round 98% of all votes might be solid on techniques with a paper document in 2024 — up from 93% in 2020.
Throughout his remarks Thursday, Musk added that individuals on the Democrats’ facet have made it “inconceivable to truly show that there is dishonest.”
After the 2020 election, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company stated it had decided that the election was “probably the most safe in American historical past.”
“There is no such thing as a proof that any voting system deleted or misplaced votes, modified votes, or was in any method compromised,” the company stated.
ABC Information’ Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.
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