After the 2020 presidential election, many right-wing figures lied that a voting software company, Dominion Voting Systems, was involved in the supposed theft of the election. Dominion has responded to these debunked lies with defamation lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages from Fox News and former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. But One America News continues to lie that Dominion helped steal the election.
On April 13, OAN promoted “a new groundbreaking lawsuit” from Michigan attorney Matthew DePerno that “cites overwhelming evidence of voter fraud in Michigan during the 2020 election.” (Dominion served a cease-and-desist order to DePerno in January.)
The segment shared the flimsy lawsuit’s false allegations that “Dominion machines in Michigan were designed to create systemic fraud and change election outcomes” by “allowing vote tallies to be changed in real time,” noting that DePerno says that may show “direct evidence of votes being switched from President Trump to Biden by foreign countries and Democrat operatives in Washington.”
The following day, OAN continued to promote DePerno’s lawsuit, noting that a defendant, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, “is backed by George Soros and was allegedly involved in the cover up of election fraud.” OAN repeated DePerno’s flimsy allegation that “Democrat officials destroyed some of the election data” in Antrim County, blaming county clerk Sheryl Guy -- a longtime Republican, who publicly took responsibility for an initial reporting error that OAN and others hyped as supposed proof of widespread Dominion fraud.
Even though OAN’s latest allegations of 2020 election or voter fraud appear to just relitigate already debunked lies, the network is promoting a special so-called investigation on Saturday, April 17, into the “latest revelations coming from the forensic audit in Antrim County, Michigan,” asking, “Were the machines connected to the internet? Was there foreign involvement? Why all the secrecy?”
OAN’s reckless lies about the 2020 election will not stop as long as network brass believe the lies are profitable. OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp has even further lied that his network “can back up and prove that all of our reporting relies strictly on the facts.” Sharp has repeatedly lied about the 2020 election, including falsely claiming that “Dominion Voting Systems is behind much of the chaos seen in the aftermath of the election.” OAN has also aired two programs created by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell in which he falsely alleges that Dominion committed election fraud, with a third reportedly on the way.
Despite the consequences for these lies — ranging from billion-dollar lawsuits to the attack on the U.S. Capitol — One America News officials clearly believe they can freely lie about Dominion and the 2020 election. And who’s going to stop them?
