Dominion Voting Systems


Dominion Voting Systems Corporation was a North American company that produced and sold electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in Canada and the United States.
In 2025, Scott Leiendecker purchased the company under a new company called Liberty Vote.

Company

Based in Toronto, Ontario, where it was founded, and Denver, Colorado, it developed software in offices in the United States, Canada, and Serbia. Dominion produced electronic voting machines, which allowed voters to cast their votes electronically, and optical scanning devices used to tabulate paper ballots.
Its voting machines have been used in countries around the world, primarily in Canada and the United States. Dominion systems were employed in Canada's major party leadership elections, and across the nation in local and municipal elections.
Dominion products had been increasingly used in the United States. In the 2020 United States presidential election, equipment manufactured by Dominion was used to process votes in twenty-eight states, including the swing states of Wisconsin and Georgia.
It was the subject of extensive attention following the election, in which incumbent president Donald Trump was defeated by Joe Biden, with Trump and various surrogates promoting conspiracy theories that falsely alleged that Dominion was part of an international cabal that stole the election from Trump, and that it used its voting machines to transfer millions of votes that had been cast for Trump instead to Biden.
There was no evidence supporting these claims, which have been debunked by various groups including election technology experts, government and voting industry officials, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The conspiracy theories were further discredited by hand recounts of the ballots cast in the 2020 presidential elections in Georgia and Wisconsin; the hand recounts in these states found that Dominion voting machines had accurately tabulated votes, that any error in the initial tabulation was instead caused by human error, and that Biden had defeated Trump in both swing states.

History

Dominion Voting Systems Corporation was founded in 2002 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by John Poulos and James Hoover, and was incorporated on January 14, 2003. Its name derives from the Dominion Elections Act.
With headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, and Denver, Colorado, the firm developed proprietary software in-house and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in the U.S. and Canada and employs a development team in its Serbian office.
In 2018, it was acquired by its management and Staple Street Capital, a private equity firm.
In December 2020 and January 2021, Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, and the American Thinker withdrew allegations they had reported about Dominion and Smartmatic after one or both companies threatened legal action for defamation.
In January 2021, it filed defamation lawsuits against former Trump campaign lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, seeking US$1.3 billion in damages from each. After Dominion filed its lawsuit against Powell, One America News Network removed all references to Dominion and Smartmatic from its website, though without issuing public retractions.
During subsequent months, Dominion filed suits seeking $1.6 billion in damages from each of Fox News, Newsmax, OANN and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, while also suing Mike Lindell and his corporation, MyPillow. Despite motions by the defendants to dismiss the lawsuits, judges ruled that the cases against Fox News, Lindell, and MyPillow could proceed.
Fox News settled the lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million in April 2023, shortly before it was due to go to trial. A month later, Dominion CEO John Poulos told Time magazine that the company expected to lose customers and thus would be unlikely to stay in business.
In 2025, Scott Leiendecker, a former Republican Missouri election official and leader of e-pollbook manufacturer KnowInk, purchased Dominion Voting Systems under a new company called Liberty Vote.

Acquisitions

In May 2010, Dominion acquired Premier Election Solutions from Election Systems & Software. ES&S had just acquired Premier from Diebold and was required to sell off Premier by the United States Department of Justice over anti-trust concerns. In June 2010, Dominion acquired Sequoia Voting Systems.

Officers

Poulos, President and CEO of Dominion, has a BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto and an MBA from INSEAD. Hoover, Vice President, has an MSc in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta.

Equipment

Dominion Voting Systems sold electronic voting systems hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in the United States and Canada. This equipment includes the DVS ImageCast Evolution, ImageCast X, and ImageCast Central.
ImageCast Evolution is an optical scan tabulator designed for use in voting precincts that scans and tabulates marked paper ballots. The ICE will also mark ballots for voters with disabilities using an attached accessibility device that enables all voters to cast votes with paper ballots on the same machine. When a marked paper ballot is inserted, the tabulator screen display messages indicating whether the ballot has been successfully input. Causes of rejection include a blank ballot, an overvoted ballot, and unclear marks. After the polls close, results from the encrypted memory cards of each ICE tabulator can be transferred and uploaded to the central system to tally and report the results.
ImageCast X is described as an accessible ballot-marking device that allows a voter to use various methods to input their choices. An activation card is required for use, which is provided by a poll worker. The machine has audio capability for up to ten languages, as required by the U.S. Department of Justice, and includes a 19" full-color screen for visual operation, audio and visual marking interfaces and Audio-Tactile Interface. ATI is a hand-held controller that coordinates with headphones and connects directly to the ICE. During the voting process, the machine generates a marked paper ballot that serves as the official ballot record. The display can be adjusted with contrast and zoom functions that automatically reset at the end of the session. The ATI device has raised keys with tactile function, includes the headphone jack and a T-coil coupling, and has a T4 rating for interference. It uses light pressure switches and may be equipped with a pneumatic switch, commonly known as "sip-n-puff", or a set of paddles.
ImageCast Central uses commercial off-the-shelf Canon DR-X10C or Canon DR-G1130 scanners at a central tabulation location to scan vote-by-mail and post-voting ballots like provisional ballots, ballots requiring duplication and ballots scanned into multi-precinct ICE tabulators. The results are dropped into a folder located on the server where they can be accessed by the Adjudication Client software.

Software

DVS voting machines operate using a suite of proprietary software applications, including Election Management System, Adjudication Client, and Mobile Ballot Printing. The software allows for various settings, including cumulative voting, where voters can apply multiple votes on one or more candidates, and Ranked Order Voting, where voters rank candidates in order of choice and the system shifts votes as candidates are eliminated.
The Election Management System includes a set of applications that handle pre- and post-voting activities, including ballot layout, programming media for voting equipment, generation of audio files, importing results data, and accumulating and reporting results.
Adjudication Client is a software application with administrative and ballot inspection roles. It allows a jurisdiction to resolve problems in a ballot on screen that would normally be rejected, to be remade or hand counted because of one or more exceptional conditions like a blank ballot, write-ins, over-votes, marginal marks and under-votes. The application configures user accounts, reasons for exception, batch management and report generation, which in some jurisdictions must be performed by an administrator directly on a server. Ballot inspection allows users to review ballots with exceptional conditions and either accept or resolve the ballot according to state laws. Each adjudicated ballot is marked with the username of the poll worker who made the change.
Mobile Ballot Printing operates in conjunction with the EMS, which creates printable ballot images in.pdf format including tints and watermarks. The image is exported to a laptop and then printed on blank paper to provide a ballot record. After configuration and setup are complete, the laptop only contains geopolitical information and no voter data. The system will also generate reports in Excel, Word and.pdf format, including total number of ballots printed and ballot style.

Operations

United States

Dominion is the second-largest seller of voting machines in the United States. In 2016, its machines served 70 million voters in 1,600 jurisdictions. In 2019, the state of Georgia selected Dominion Voting Systems to provide its new statewide voting system beginning in 2020.
In total, 28 states used Dominion voting machines to tabulate their votes during the 2020 United States presidential election, including most of the swing states. Dominion's role in this regard led supporters of then-President Donald Trump to promote conspiracy theories about the company's voting machines, following Trump's loss to Joe Biden in the election.
Dominion has also been used in Puerto Rico, though in 2024, the Puerto Rico State Commission on Elections stated it was considering ending the contract with Dominion after hundreds of vote total discrepancies were found.
In Texas, the Texas Secretary of State's Office has rejected three of Dominion's products from being used in any jurisdiction in the state.