As Dominion Voting Systems filings continue to reveal internal communications of Fox News executives and employees during the 2020 election cycle, there is further evidence that Fox programming intentionally misled the network's audience to believe the Big Lie that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. Dominion apparently intends to bring this evidence before a jury to prove Fox News intentionally lied about voter fraud, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, in order to defame the voting systems company.

Recently released Dominion slides — part of its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News — show that Fox’s Decision Team warned against calling the race in battleground states too early, specifically in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The November 3, 2020, memo made clear to employees that “the presidential race call could come AFTER election night,” but that “does NOT mean that there are problems with the integrity of the vote count.”

Fox executives acknowledged the “widely understood” possibility of a long-expected “red mirage” phenomenon — an initial Trump lead on Election Day that would tighten as largely Democratic mail-in votes were counted in the following days.

This notion was not new, as both mainstream media and even FoxNews.com had reported before the election that a “red mirage” could be possible. But in its coverage during and immediately after election night, Fox still undermined the extended counting period and pushed doubts about voter fraud, including scaremongering that mailed-in ballots appeared “overnight” and questioning thorough vote-counting.

Below are examples of Fox personalities and guests baselessly alleging voter fraud and fearmongering about election integrity on and around November 3, 2020, even though Fox’s own reporting and internal communications recognized the likelihood of naturally delayed vote counting from mail-in ballots and a “red mirage.”

• On November 4, 2020, Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz ignored the fact that mail-in ballots were still being counted and remarked that Trump was winning Pennsylvania by 700,000 votes, saying, “You can't statistically go back and tell me that that thing is still really in play. How are they going to go get 700,000 additional votes?”
• On the November 4, 2020, edition of Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee said, “A lot of these votes, you know, sort of suddenly get found and get counted days after the election,” adding, “It would be a real shame if Philadelphia became the place where liberty also died.”
• On America’s Newsroom, Fox contributor Bill McGurn lamented on November 4, 2020, that counting the vote was going past Election Day, adding, “Look, this is the worst outcome where everyone goes to vote, and then overnight, people are counting votes, we don't know what's going on, and results change. We should do everything to try to prevent that, but again Pennsylvania and other states invited this.” 
• On November 4, 2020, Fox & Friends hosts allowed then-Trump senior adviser David Bossie to allege, “On the day after the election, are ballots going to be found and collected and counted? And that's a deep concern by our campaign. I can tell you right now that the lawyers are warming up in the bullpen, and they're going to make sure that it's one vote for one person.” None of the Fox hosts provided any pushback on the claims suggesting Democrats would be “stuffing the ballot boxes.”  
• Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce appeared on the November 4, 2020, edition of Fox Business’s Varney & Co. where she compared the counting process to a “soft coup.” Paraphrasing Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, she said, “It's not the people who vote who decide an election, it's those who are counting those votes.” She added, “As an example, there is — was 128,000 new votes in Michigan, 100% of which went to Joe Biden. There's a lot of things that are going on.”
• During a November 4, 2020, panel, Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley said, “When people say ‘count every ballot,’ in a situation like this it could prove utter madness.” Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum agreed, saying, “There is going to be a lot of subjectivity in the question of whether or not all of these ballots are valid in many cases.”
• On November 4, 2020, Fox News host Laura Ingraham said that Trump “was right when he questioned mail-in ballots all of those months ago,” adding, “We are the world's leading democracy and we can't declare a victor on election night? That is absurd and it is toxic.”
• On November 3, 2020, Fox anchor Harris Faulkner provided no pushback when former Trump communications director Erin Perrine claimed that Democrats were trying to steal the election from Trump. Perrine told Faulkner, “There is a deadline, it is the election, it is the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. That’s how our country works. … But Democrats trying to change the rules, upend the process here, to try and be able to cram votes in later. That’s stealing the election.”