Lindell Filing

CASE 0:21-cv-01332 Doc.
1 Filed 06/03/21 Page 1 of 82
United States District Court

District of Minnesota
MICHAEL J. LINDELL,
Case No.________________
Plaintiff,
v.
US DOMINION, INC., COMPLAINT

DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS, INC.,
DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS
CORPORATION, SMARTMATIC USA
CORP., SMARTMATIC
INTERNATIONAL HOLDING B.V., and
SGO CORPORATION LIMITED,
Defendants. Jury Trial Demanded
I. OVERVIEW
“We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation
after generation. In the face of the Thought Police, there is no other way.”
- George Orwell, 1984
1. Mike Lindell brings this lawsuit to stop electronic voting machine companies
from weaponizing the litigation process to silence political dissent and suppress evidence
showing voting machines were manipulated to affect outcomes in the November 2020
general election.
2. Fact: Electronic voting machines and software can be hacked through a
cyber attack, thereby allowing data flowing through those devices to be manipulated,
stolen, or altered.
CASE 0:21-cv-01332 Doc. 1 Filed 06/03/21 Page 2 of 82
3. Fact: It is indisputable that the electronic voting machines and software
manufactured and sold by Dominion 1 and Smartmatic 2 are vulnerable to cyberattacks
before, during, and after an election, and in a manner that could easily alter election
outcomes. Election security expert and University of Michigan science and engineering
professor, J. Alex Halderman, and others have given sworn testimony of this fact: 3
1
“Dominion Defendants” refers collectively to Defendants US Dominion, Inc., Dominion
Voting Systems, Inc., and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation. Unless otherwise noted,
“Dominion” refers to Defendant Dominion Voting Systems, Inc.
2
“Smartmatic Defendants” refers collectively to Defendants Smartmatic USA Corp.,
Smartmatic International Holding B.V., and SGO Corporation Limited. Unless otherwise
noted, “Smartmatic” refers to Defendant Smartmatic USA Corp.
3
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmivIHUAy8Q
2
Now-Vice President Kamala Harris, along with other Democratic senators, said the same
think during a senate hearing prior to the November 2020 general election: 4
4. Fact: Direct and circumstantial evidence demonstrates that, during the 2020
General Election, electronic voting machines like those manufactured and sold by
Dominion were manipulated and hacked in a manner that caused votes for one candidate
to be tallied for the opposing candidate.
5. Fact: Voting machine companies like Dominion are state actors by virtue of
their roles running elections in the United States—an essential state function.
6. Fact: The First Amendment guarantees the right of citizens such as Mike
Lindell to express political dissent and espouse beliefs without fear of intimidation,
4
See https://www.worldviewweekend.com/tv/video/mike-lindell-presents-absolutely-9-0,
beginning at the 22:56 minute mark.
3
suppression, or punishment from state actors like voting machine companies that provide
election equipment and run elections for government agencies.
7. Fact: Following the 2020 General Election, Mike Lindell gathered and
publicly shared information from various sources demonstrating that voting machines
were, in fact, the target of cyberattacks in the November 2020 general election. Such
evidence includes Dr. Douglas Frank’s analysis showing conclusively that an algorithm
was employed to manipulate votes in the 2020 General Election and evidence of hacking
of electronic voting machines by China and other nation-state actors—including twenty
such hacks, primarily by actors in China that alone changed the outcomes in the presidential
race in the 2020 General Election.
8. Fact: In response to Mike Lindell’s public statements about the evidence he
had gathered, Dominion Voting Systems and its lawyers at Clare Locke, LLP (“Clare
Locke”) threatened Mike Lindell with financial ruin if he did not cease his public
expression of his political speech regarding the debacle that was the use of electronic voting
machines in the 2020 General Election.
9. Fact: When Mike Lindell refused to be intimidated into giving up his First
Amendment right to political free speech, Dominion sued him for $1.3 billion in federal
court in Washington, D.C.—a jurisdiction where neither Lindell nor Dominion reside, and
outside the jurisdiction where Lindell made the vast majority of the statements Dominion
complains about.
10. Fact: Dominion has weaponized the legal process and intimidated witnesses
to election fraud by suing or threatening to sue over 150 private individuals or
4
organizations, including dozens of citizen volunteer poll watchers, with baseless
defamation lawsuits or “cease and desist” letters from Dominion’s lawyers at Clare Locke.
Dominion further publicly boasts of doing so—merely because those citizens signed
affidavits regarding fraudulent or illegal activities they persoanally observed during the
November 2020 general election. Dozens of those citizens never mentioned Dominion or
issues with any electronic voting machines. Yet, Dominion and Clare Locke still
threatened these witnesses—citizen volunteers performing a public service—with ruinous
litigation and onerous demands that they preserve even private communications.
11. Fact: Smartmatic has engaged in similar weaponization of the court system
to attack other individuals and news outlets, merely for publicly sharing information they
have gathered regarding vulnerabilities in, and attacks on, electronic voting machines in
the 2020 General Election.
12. Fact: A full forensic audit of the vote in the fourth most populous county in
the United States—Maricopa County, Arizona—is currently being conducted. That audit
includes an audit of Dominion’s voting machines used in that county, as ordered by the
Arizona Senate “to restore integrity to the election process.” The Maricopa County Board
of Supervisors and various Democrat-affiliated groups have spent months attempting to
thwart or obstruct the audit—efforts that have been repeatedly rebuffed in Court. This
includes refusing to turn over routers to which the Dominion machines were connected and
which will show details regarding the Dominion machines’ connectivity to the internet.
The Maricopa County officials have also admitted they do not possess the administrative
passwords to the Dominion voting machines—meaning Dominion employees had control
5
over the election. Dominion joined the Democrat-led chorus to smear the audit and has
refused to cooperate with the auditors, including refusing to turn over the administrator
passwords to the voting machines.
13. Fact: Forensic audits and investigations of the November 2020 election and
the role of voting machines and electronic voting systems are currently underway either by
court order or by direction of state legislatures or attorneys general in Arizona, Georgia,
Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire.
14. Conclusion: Dominion, Smartmatic, and others are desperate to cover up
gross security flaws in their electronic voting systems—and information showing cyber
attacks and hacking in the November 2020 election—by uniting in a common purpose to
use the litigation process to attempt to suppress the revelation and public discussion of
these truths.
15. This new, fledgling era of “lawfare” 5 must be stopped before it is allowed to
gain a toehold of acceptance in the U.S. judiciary and the courts become yet another
weapon for wealthy corporations and the powerful politicians they support to silence
speech and ideas they deem unacceptable to their narrative.
II. PARTIES
16. Plaintiff Michael J. Lindell (“Plaintiff” or “Lindell”) is an individual citizen
of the State of Minnesota.
Lawsuit Warfare = Lawsuit + Warefare = Lawfare. See

5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawfare
6
17. Defendant US Dominion, Inc. is a corporation organized and existing under
the laws of the State of Delaware with its principal place of business in Denver, Colorado.
It may be served with process by delivering the summons and complaint to its Chief
Executive Officer, John Poulos, at its principal place of business, 1201 18th Street, Suite
210, Denver, Colorado 80202.
18. Defendant Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. is a corporation organized and
existing under the laws of the State of Delaware with its principal place of business in
Denver, Colorado. It may be served with process through its registered agent for service
of process in Minnesota, Cogency Global, Inc., 6160 Summit Drive N., Suite 205,
Brooklyn Center, Minnesota 55430.
19. Defendant Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a corporation organized
and existing under the laws of the Province of Ontario, Canada with its principal place of
business in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It may be served with process in accordance with
the terms of the Hague Convention.
20. Defendant Smartmatic USA Corp. is a corporation organized and existing
under the laws of the State of Delaware with its principal place of business in Boca Raton,
Florida. It may be served with process by delivering the summons and complaint to its
Director, James Long, at its principal place of business, 1001 Broken Sount Parkway, Suite
D, Boca Raton, Florida 33487.
21. Defendant Smartmatic International Holding B.V. is a corporation organized
and existing under the laws of the Netherlands, with its principal place of business in
7
Amsterdam, Netherlands. It may be served with process in accordance with the terms of
the Hauge Convention.
22. Defendant SGO Corporation Limited is a corporation organized and existing
under the laws of the United Kingdom with its principal place of business located in
London, United Kingdom. It may be served with process in accordance with the terms of
the Hague Concention.
III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE
23. This Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this dispute pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 1331, in that one or more of Plaintiff’s causes of action arises under the
Constitution or laws of the United States. Specifically, Plaintiff alleges causes of action
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), and 18 U.S.C § 1964.
24. This Court also has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this dispute
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332, in that the matter in controversy exceeds $75,000, exclusive
of interest and costs, and is between citizens of different states or citizens of a State and
citizens or subjects of a foreign state. Specifically, Lindell is a citizen of Minnesota, while
Defendants are citizens of Delaware, Colorado, Florida, Canada, the Netherlands, and the
United Kingdom.
25. This Court has in personam jurisdiction over Defendants in that Defendants
have minimum contacts with the State of Minnesota, having purposefully availed
themselves of the privilege of doing business here. Moreover, this Court’s assertion of
personal jurisdiction over Defendants comports with traditional notions of fair play and
substantial justice.
8
26. Venue is proper in this District under 28 U.S.C. § 1391 in that Defendants
are subject to personal jurisdiction in this District, as set out above.
IV. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new
shapes of your own choosing.”
27. Lindell will prove that the Dominion Defendants, acting in concert and as
part of an unlawful enterprise alongside the Smartmatic Defendants, have weaponized the
court system and the litigation process in an attempt to silence Lindell’s and others’
political speech about election fraud and the role of electronic voting machines in it. In the
specific context of political speech about something as vital to a republican form of
government as election integrity, no litigant should be permitted to use the courts and the
litigation process as a bludgeon to suppress and stifle dissent. But that is what the
Dominion Defendants and Smartmatic Defendants have done. Many of their victims lack
the resources to fight back and expose the defendants’ scheme for what it is—an
authoritarian abuse of state power fueled by the virtually unlimited resources from their
ideological comrades. But Mike Lindell has the resources and the will to fight back, albeit
at great personal and financial cost; Mike Lindell believes the future of the American
republic depends on fighting back against censorship of information concerning the
fundamental aspect of our republic—fair and secure elections. So Mike Lindell brings this
suit to bring a stop to the defendants’ abuses of the legal system and protect Americans’
right to speak freely on matters of the utmost public concern.
9
A. The Rise of the Machines
“You talk as if a god had made the Machine … I believe that you pray to it when you are
unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that.”
- E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops
28. Prior to 2002, states conducted their elections overwhelmingly using
relatively secure and auditable paper-based systems. However, following passage of the
Help America Vote Act in 2002, 6 billions of federal dollars were spent to move from such
paper-based systems to electronic, computer-based systems.
29. As a result, by 2020, most elections in the United States were conducted
using one of only a small handful of available private election management systems. These
systems are provided by a small number of private companies having little to no
transparency to the public, producing results that are far more difficult to audit than paper-
based systems, and lacking any meaningful federal standards or security requirements
beyond what individual states may choose to certify. 7
30. This small cadre of private companies supply the hardware and software for
the election management systems and electronic voting machines, in some cases manage
the voter registration rolls, maintain the voter records, partially manage the elections,
program the vote counting, and report the election results to the relevant government
authorities.
6
52 U.S.C. § 20901 et seq.
7
Dominion touts its certification by the United States Election Assistance Commission
(“EAC”). But as of November 2020, the EAC did not test or certify electronic voting
systems for security against cyberattacks.
10
31. A total of five (5) companies conduct and administer elections for more than
ninety percent (90%) of counties in the United States: (1) Election Systems & Software,
(2) Dominion Voting Systems, (3) Smartmatic USA Corp., (4) Hart InterCivic, and (5)
Tenex. All these providers’ electronic voting machines and election management systems
are vulnerable to hacking, as has been published and presented to various congressional
committees. All can be, and at various steps in the voting, counting, tabulation, and/or
reporting process are designed to be, connected to the internet directly or indirectly.
32. After votes are tabulated at the county level using one of the handful of
available election management systems, they are then uploaded over the internet to one of
a small handful of election night reporting systems. Those systems are owned and
controlled by Scytl, GCR, VR Systems, and Arikkan. For its part, the Clarity system, used
in 28 states, is wholly owned by Scytl, a multi-national company headquartered in
Barcelona, Spain that reportedly stores its election vote data on servers in Frankfurt,
Germany.
33. In short, over the last two decades, the United States has transitioned from a
safe, secure, auditable paper-based system (paper voter rolls, hand-marked paper ballots,
etc.) to an inherently vulnerable, internet-exposed electronic voting machine-based system.
And not surprisingly, that transition to increased reliance on electronic systems and
computer technology has brought with it the very real spectre of hacking, election
tampering, and electronic voting fraud.
34. As previously noted, Dominion and Smartmatic manufacture, distribute, and
maintain voting hardware and software. Dominion executes software updates, fixes, and
11
patches for its voting machines, including as late as the night before election day, and it
pushes out such software through means selected at its own discretion, including via the
internet.
35. Dominion designs public election processes with its hardware and software
products at the center and provides administrative services for public elections. While polls
are open, Dominion employees stand by to provide troubleshooting and support when
voting machines malfunction, among other election services. Dominion audits the
performance of the machines and elections.
36. Increasingly, jurisdictions have chosen to outsource election operations and
programming to private contractors. By the time of the 2020 election, at least 3,143
counties across the United States had outsourced responsibility for programming and
administering elections to private contractors. For the 2020 election, Dominion provided
its voting machines and services in more than half of the United States from its U.S. base
of operations in Colorado. Many of these states, such as Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin,
Michigan, Georgia, Florida, and Pennsylvania, have been referred to as battleground or
swing states because their voters are equally divided (or nearly equally divided) in their
degree of support for the two primary political parties. Dominion has contracts with over
1,300 governmental jurisdictions around the United States to administer elections.
37. By its own account Dominion provides an “End-To-End Election
Management System” that “[d]rives the entire election project through a single
12
comprehensive database.” 8 Its tools “build the election project,” and its technology
provides “solutions” for “voting & tabulation,” and “tallying & reporting,” and “auditing
the election.” The products sold by Dominion include ballot marking machines, tabulation
machines, and central tabulation machines, among others. By contracting with
governmental jurisdictions to provide comprehensive voting solutions for public elections,
Dominion is a governmental actor. As a result of Dominion’s contracts with government
entities, it is delegated responsibility to administer public elections, including the election
of individuals to serve in constitutionally prescribed offices—a core governmental
function. In at least one jurisdiction in the November 2020 election, Maricopa County,
Arizona, county officials did not even possess the administrator passwords to the Dominion
voting machines—meaning only Dominion could program and operate the machines on
behalf of the county.
38. Dominion’s involvement in running elections amounts to state action.
Dominion willfully participates in joint activity with the state during voting, including by
supplying its products and services coextensively with election officials to carry out the
election. There is pervasive entwinement between Dominion and the state.
8
DEMOCRACY SUITE® ELECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM,
https://www.dominionvoting.com/democracy-suite-ems/ (last visited Apr. 18, 2021).
13
B. Strange Bedfellows
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

- William Shakespeare, The Tempest
39. Dominion and Smartmatic both manufacture, distribute, and maintain voting
hardware and software. They both also execute software updates, fixes, and patches for
their voting machines and election management systems. On the surface, Dominion and
Smartmatic appear as competitors in the market for electronic voting systems. But in
reality, they share many things in common—including an intertwined corporate history
and a shared “DNA” of election management system software and hardware. They also
share a common purpose of using litigation and “lawfare” to silence any who would
publicly criticize the security flaws in their voting machines and systems or attempt to
inform the public about the role of those flaws in undermining the integrity of the 2020
presidential election.
40. According to its website, 9 Dominion was founded in 2003, and provides
electronic voting machines and systems in 28 different states and Puerto Rico, including
“9 of the top 20 counties” and “4 of the top 10 counties” in the United States. Its machines
and systems range from the “election event designer”—software that creates the ballots
voters will mark while voting, as well as programing the tabulators of those votes—to the
devices on which voters mark their votes (“ballot marking devices,” or “BMDs”), to the
machines that tabulate the votes at the precinct level, to the machines that receive and
tabulate the various precinct results (“centralized tabulation”), to the systems and options
9
https://www.dominionvoting.com
14
for transmitting those results from the BMD to the precinct tabulator to the central tabulator
to, ultimately, the official government authority responsible for certifying the election
results. In a very real sense, then, Dominion controls the administration and conduct of the
elections in those jurisdictions where its systems are deployed, and any vulnerabilities or
weaknesses in Dominion’s systems undermine—or at the very least, call into legitimate
question—the integrity and reliability of all election results coming from those
jurisdictions.
41. According to its website, 10 Smartmatic was founded in 2000 in Palm Beach
County, Florida, and developed its first electronic voting machine in 2003. However, it
finds its true beginnings in Venezuela back in 1997, when three Venezuelan engineers—
Antonio Mugica, Alfredo Jose Anzola, and Roger Piñate founded Tecnologia Smartmatic
de Venezuela, C.A. It was not until April 2000 that the founders created Smartmatic Voting
Systems in Delaware, with headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida. But Smartmatic’s ties to
Venezuela remained strong. In early 2004, a Venezuelan government financing agency
invested more than US $200,000 in a technology company, Bitza, owned by the same
owners as Smartmatic. Also in 2004, Smartmatic was contracted by the Venezuelan
National Electoral Council to provide e-voting technology for the 2004 Venezuelan
national elections. That same year, Smartmatic moved its headquarters to Amsterdam, the
Netherlands.
10
https://www.smartmatic.com/us/about/our-history/
15
42. In 2005, Smartmatic opened its research and development center in Taipei,
Taiwan, and also began to offer its electronic voting services in the United States. Between
2007 and 2008, Smartmatic expanded its offerings to numerous foreign jurisdictions,
including Curaçao, the Phillipines, Argentina, and Brazil, while continuing its close
relationship as a contractor for the Hugo Chavez-controlled government of Venezuela. By
2011, Smartmatic had expanded its operations to Mexico, Haiti, Panama, and India. In
2012, Smartmatic moved its headquarters to London. In 2014, Smartmatic created the
Centre for Excellence in Estonia with the goal of advancing internet voting. By 2015 and
2016, Smartmatic was offering its electronic voting services in such far-away jurisdictions
as Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, and Oman. In 2018, Smartmatic became a member
of the United States Department of Homeland Security’s fledgling Sector Coordinating
Council for the Election Infrastructure Sector 11—a prime example of “the fox guarding the
henhouse.”
43. The histories of Dominion and Smartmatic are inextricably intertwined,
which helps to explain their coordinated actions at issue in this lawsuit. Some background
is important to understand this point.
44. From roughly 2002 to 2009, two voting machine vendors dominated
electronic voting in United States elections: Diebold Election Systems (re-branded to
Premier Election Solutions, Inc. in 2007) and Election Systems & Software (“ES&S”).
11
See https://www.smartmatic.com/us/media/article/smartmatic-founding-member-of-
the-dhs-council-to-protect-election-integrity-and-security/
16
ES&S was acquired by American Information Systems (“AIS”), a company formed in
Nebraska by the Urosevich brothers, descendants of Serbian immigrants. 12 Following that
acquisition, AIS changed its name and began doing business as ES&S. From 2002 to 2009,
ES&S served approximately 45% of precincts in the United States, while Diebold
(operating under the Premier name) served approximately 23% of U.S. precincts. The
remaining precincts were served by Sequoia Voting Systems (18%), Hart InterCivic (9%),
and Dominion (founded in 2003) (5%).
45. In 2005, Smartmatic (flush with cash from its 2004 efforts on behalf of the
Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela) acquired Sequoia for $16 million and, with it, its
18% U.S. electronic voting market share. Smartmatic worked quickly to replace Sequoia’s
inferior technology with Smartmatic’s own systems and personnel, which was followed by
two years of rapid growth and solid revenue. Then, concerns arose about the ties between
Smartmatic/Sequoia and the government of Venezuela. Specifically, in or around May
2006, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D. NY) asked the U.S. Treasury Department to
investigate Smartmatic’s acquisition of Sequoia. Around the same time, concerns arose in
connection with Smartmatic’s efforts to implement its systems for the City of Chicago,
when observers noticed that Smartmatic was flying in developers from Venezuela to
12
Dominion’s ties to Serbia run far deeper than the ancestry of AIS’s founders. In May
2016, Dominion’s then Vice President, Goran Obradovic, gave an interview in which he
stated that Dominion’s office in Belgrade was opened in 2005 and had grown by 2016 into
a team of 50 engineers. “The products such as Democracy Suite Election Management
System, ImageCast Evolution and ImageCase X are completely developed in Belgrade.”
https://ekonomijaibiznis.mk/ControlPanel/Upload/Free_Editions/wZ0X5bz60KCgpcvFc
EBvA/maj%202016%20ENG/mobile/index.html#p=33 (emphasis added).
17
resolve issues and assist with the implementation. By the time those concerns emerged
publicly in the U.S. media, Sequoia/Smartmatic had voting equipment located in 17 U.S.
states and the District of Columbia.
46. Concerned for the integrity of their elections and voting system, the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) ordered an audit to
determine if any Foreign Investment Act rules had been broken. However, rather than
undergoing that audit, Smartmatic developed a plan to divest (sell) Sequoia to its U.S.-
based management, and establish Smartmatic as a U.S.-based provider of global election
systems. To that end, in late 2007 or early 2008, Smartmatic and Sequoia management
formed a new company, SVS Holdings, which became the new owner of Sequoia.
However, Smartmatic continued to hold a promissory note from SVS secured by $2 million
worth of shares, along with a percentage “earn-out” from future SVS revenues. Moreover,
Smartmatic’s technology continued to be used in SVS/Sequoia machines.
47. In 2009, ES&S acquired Premier, creating a market behemoth with nearly
70% of the market share for electronic voting systems in the United States. Not long after
the acquisition anti-trust concerns led to ES&S being forced to divest itself of Premier. In
May 2010, ES&S sold Premier to Dominion, then a Canadian company with only 5% of
the United States market for electronic voting systems. According to Dominion’s press
release at the time, the acquisition included “the primary assets of Premier, including all
intellectual property, software, firmware and hardware for Premier’s current and legacy
optical scan, central scan, and touch screen voting systems,and all versions of the GEMS
election management system.”
18
48. In June 2010, under continued pressure from authorities due to the ongoing
financial and technological control by Smartmatic, SVS was forced to sell Sequoia and its
Smartmatic-heavy technology. The buyer? None other than the upstart Canadian
company, Dominion. Dominion thereby acquired Sequoia, including the rights to the
Smartmatic technology still used in SVS/Sequoia machines following the Sequoia
divestiture from Smartmatic in or around 2005. After the acquisition of Sequoia, Dominion
held roughly 50% of the private electoral market for electronic voting in the U.S., with
only two remaining competitors—ES&S, with 40%, and Hart InterCivic, with 10%. At
the time, Dominion spokesman Chris Rigall claimed that “Smartmatic’s intellectual
property was not included in the Sequoia transaction because Sequoia did not own it.” But
according to a 2017 report published by the Huffington Post, “The ‘intellectual property’
of the voting systems (of Sequoia, acquired by Dominion) remains the property of the
company linked to the Venezuelan president (Smartmatic and Hugo Chavez), despite the
rather misleading statement” issued by Dominion in 2010. In fact, the Huffington Post
investigation revealed that the intellectual property “of most/almost all of Sequoia’s voting
systems was actually secretly owned by the firm Smartmatic.” It was later discovered that
Smartmatic still held interests in Sequoia, even controlling the company’s intellectual
property through rights it had reserved to negotiate by means of non-compete agreements
abroad.
49. The historically intertwined relationship between Dominion and Smartmatic
extends beyond the mere acquisition of legacy hardware and software technologies. For
example, in 2009, Dominion and Smartmatic entered into a license agreement whereby
19
Smartmatic leased from Dominion certain precinct count optical scan technology,
including “the right to market, make, use and sell PCOS voting systems using the
Dominion technology,” as well as “the applicable hardware, software and firmware loaded
on the hardware and election management system (‘EMS’) software designed to be used
with such version of the PCOS system.”
50. Even more telling is the cross-pollenization of former Smartmatic employees
and inventors who found their way to Dominion in the Sequoia acquisition. With
Dominion’s acquisition of Sequoia in June 2010, came Eric Coomer, Vice President for
Engineering at Smartmatic, and Frederico Arnao, Venezuelan-born “Usability Architect”
for Smartmatic and Senior Software Developer for Smartmatic-affiliated Bizta Voting
Systems. Importantly, Arnao and Coomer are named as inventors on a pair of patent
applications filed on April 22, 2011, dealing with electronic voting systems, claiming
priority to patents filed in 2009, while they were still employed by Smartmatic. (For his
part, Coomer is listed as an inventor on an additional four such patents, one of which traces
back to a patent filing in 2008.) By way of further example, public internet searches identify
at least four additional employees who are shown as employees of Dominion Voting
Systems at Smartmatic’s Boca Raton, Florida business address, with @smartmatic email
addresses:
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Name Title Company E-mail Address Web Domain
Babic, Vice Dominion Paul.babic@smartmatic.com 1001 Broken Dominionvoting.com

Paul President Voting Sound Pkwy
Marketing Systems Corp, NW, Boca
Boca Raton, Raton, FL
Florida 33487
Cook, U.S. Sales Dominion Jason.cook@smartmatic.com 1001 Broken Dominionvoting.com
Jason Voting Sound Pkwy
Systems Corp, NW, Boca
Florida 33487
Scott, Senior Dominion Jeff.scott@smartmatic.com 1001 Broken Dominionvoting.com
Jeffrey Technical Voting Sound Pkwy
Sales Systems Corp, NW, Boca
Engineer Boca Raton, Raton, FL
Florida 33487
Vasquez, Vice Dominion jvasquez@smartmatic.com 1001 Broken Dominionvoting.com
Jorge M. President Voting Sound Pkwy
Operations Systems Corp, NW, Boca
Florida 33487
51. Legislators have long raised questions about the murky picture of who
exactly owns and controls electronic voting machine companies like Dominion. In
December 2019, United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (D-
Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-Or.), and Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote to Stephen D.
Owens and Hootan Yaghoobzadeh, Managing Directors of Staple Street Capital, LLC, a
private equity firm, which acquired Dominion in 2018. After recognizing that Dominion
was “one of three election technology vendors responsible for developing, manufacturing
and maintaining the vast majority of voting machines and software in the United States,
the four Democratic congressional leaders raised a number of serious concerns regarding
“the spread and effect of private equity investment in many sectors of the economy,
including the election technology industry—an integral part of our nation’s democratic
process.” Those concerns included:
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a. “[T]hat secretive and ‘trouble-plagued companies,’ owned by private equity

firms and responsible for manufacturing and maintaining voting machines
and other election administration equipment, ‘have long skimped on security
in favor of convenience,’ leaving voting systems across the country ‘prone
to security problems.’”
b. “[T]hree large vendors—Election Systems & Software, Dominion, and Hart

InteCivic—collectively provide voting machines and software that facilitate
voting for over 90% of all eligible voters in the United States.”
c. “Election security experts have noted for years that our nation’s election
systems and infrastructure are under serious threat.”
d. “[V]oting machines are reportedly falling apart across the country, as

vendors neglect to innovate and improve important voting systems, putting
our elections at avoidable and increased risk.”
e. “[R]esearchers recently uncovered previously undisclosed vulnerabilities in

‘nearly three dozen backend election systems in 10 states.’”
f. “These problems threaten the integrity of our elections and demonstrate the
importance of election systems that are strong, durable, and not vulnerable
to attack.”
The congressional leaders’ letter followed these concerns with a request for seven specific
categories of information “[i]n order to help us understand your firm’s role in this sector.”
52. The congressional leaders’ concerns were not unfounded. In 2018,
Dominion was acquired by a private equity firm, Staple Street Capital, whose largest
shareholder, David Mark Rubenstein, is a co-founder of The Carlyle Group. The Carlyle
Group is a global investment firm with longstanding and enormous investments in China.
In 2020, mere months before the election, Staple Street Capital (owner of Dominion)
received a $400 million investment from UBS Securities, LLC. UBS Securities LLC owns
24.99% of UBS Securities Co. LTD, a Chinese investment bank. The remaining 75% of
UBS Securities Co. LTD is owned by the Chinese government or various arms of it. At
22
the time of the November 2020 election, the two UBS Securities affiliates shared three
common directors: (1) Ye Xiang (Board Chairman of UBS Beijing until his resignation in
December 2020, also Secretary of Peoples Bank of China and ex-director of Bank of China
International); (2) Mu Lina (Director of Fund Management and Head of Fund Operations
for UBS Beijing); and (3) Luo Qiang.
53. Nor do the connections between Dominion, Smartmatic, and China end with
the $400 million investment in Dominion’s parent. Five years earlier, beginning in 2015,
Smartmatic began using the Chinese company Shenzhen Zhongjian Nanfang Testing Co.,
Ltd. to conduct in-depth testing, studies, and certifications of its voting machine hardware
and software. This relationship continued until at least 2020, just prior to the election. In
that role, the Chinese company had complete access to all facets of Smartmatic’s devices
and software—which shared the same “DNA” as the Dominion systems going back to the
Diebold-Premier-Sequoia acquisitions. Worse still, in or around September 2019,
Dominion pledged as many as eighteen of its patents as collateral with Hong Kong
Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), a large Chinese bank.
54. In other words, by the time of the 2020 election, Chinese government-related
entities, Chinese technology companies, and powerful Chinese financial interests had
direct or indirect ownership of and near-total access to Dominion’s and Smartmatic’s
voting machine technology. Small wonder that by then congressional leaders had serious
concerns regarding “the spread and effect of private equity investment in many sectors of
the economy, including the election technology industry.”
23
C. Ghosts in the Machines
“But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time,
wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can’t last.”
- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
55. As a result of systemic and well-documented vulnerabilities in Dominion’s
software and hardware, widespread claims have been lodged that during the 2020 election
significant numbers of votes across the country were altered.
56. Lindell was not the first to sound the alarm that electronic voting machines
posed grave threats to U.S. election integrity. Indeed, voices from the political left had
been protesting the use and vulnerability of electronic voting machines for years prior to
the 2020 Presidential election.
57. Evidence of problems with electronic voting systems, including Dominion’s
system, has been accumulating for over a decade, and the 2020 election cycle only
accelerated this trend. Prior to 2020, it was well-established that these systems were wide-
open to hacking. Evidence that Dominion’s voting systems actually were hacked in the
2020 election continues to accumulate.
58. Some states, like Texas, rejected Dominion voting systems after examining
their vulnerability to hacking. Others, like Arizona, have found cause to order post-election
forensic audits of electronic voting systems—including Dominion’s voting machines—to
attempt to “restore integrity to the election process.” 13 Recently, the New Hampshire
13
Press Release, Ariz. Senate Republicans, Senate chooses qualified auditing firm to
conduct forensic audit of Maricopa County election results (Jan. 29, 2021)
24
Senate voted 24-0 to conduct a complete examination of Dominion-owned voting machines
after suspicious shorting of votes was discovered. 14 Litigation involving Dominion’s
voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, initiated after approximately 6,000 votes
were discovered to have been wrongly switched between Presidential candidates—
ostensibly due to a so-called “glitch” 15—proved Dominion’s machines could be
manipulated and hacked to generate this “glitch.”
59. During a December 30, 2020 live-streamed hearing held by the Georgia
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Elections, a testifying expert hacked into a Dominion
polling pad during a live broadcast to the world. 16 And, at the same hearing, legislators
were shown replays of real-time news reports showing that tens of thousands of votes were
switched from President Trump to former Vice President Biden in several counties in
Georgia. For example, in Bibb county, Trump was reported to have 29,391 votes at 9:11
pm EST while simultaneously former Vice President Biden was reported to have 17,218
https://www.azsenaterepublicans.com/post/senate-chooses-qualified-auditing-firm-to-
conduct-forensic-audit-of-maricopa-county-election-results.
14
Chad Groenig, Dominion gets caught shorting GOP candidates, One News Now, Mar.
5, 2021,
https://onenewsnow.com/politics-govt/2021/03/05/dominion-gets-caught-shorting-gop-
candidates.
15
Tom Pappert, VIDEO: Michigan County Discovers ‘Glitch’ That Gave 6,000 Trump
Votes to Biden, National File, Nov. 6, 2020, https://nationalfile.com/video-michigan-
county-discovers-glitch-that-gave-6000-trump-votes-to-biden/; Jack Windsor, Votes for
Trump Went to Biden in Antrim County, Michigan, The Michigan Star, Nov. 7,
2020, https://themichiganstar.com/2020/11/07/votes-for-trump-went-to-biden-in-antrim-
county-michigan/.
16
Ski, Dominion machines hacked LIVE during Georgia election hearing, Blue White
Illustrated (Dec. 30, 2020, 10:31 AM), https://bwi.forums.rivals.com/threads/dominion-
machines-hacked-live-during-georgia-election-hearing.286325/.
25
votes. A minute later at the next update, these vote numbers switched, with Trump now
having 17,218 votes and Biden having 29,391—a 12,173-vote switch in Biden’s favor.
YouTube—owned by Google, Inc.—removed this news video after this switch was
revealed. 17 No rational explanation has ever been offered showing a legitimate reason for
this switch in the vote tally.
60. For many years serious security and technology problems have dogged
Dominion’s election machines and systems.
61. As noted, Dominion purchased Premier (formerly Diebold) from ES&S in
2010, thereby acquiring all intellectual property, software, and firmware and hardware for
Premier’s voting systems and all versions of Premier’s Global Election Management
System (GEMS). 18
62. Premier had been owned by Diebold, but Diebold changed its name to
Preimier in 2007 after a series of studies publicized its unreliable security and accuracy,
and technical problems sullied its reputation. The name change was motivated by the desire
to create a fresh public image. 19 Diebold sold Premier to ES&S for $5 million in September
17
https://epochtimes.today/georgia-data-shows-24658-of-trumps-votes-removed-another-
12713-switched-to-biden-data-scientists/.
18
“Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. Acquires Premier Election Solutions Assets from
ES&S” (May 20, 2010), available at
https://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/10/05/b292647/dominion-voting-systems-inc-
acquires-premier-election-solutions-assets-.
19
Allison St. John, Diebold Voting Machine Company Changes Name to Improve Image,
KPBS (Aug. 21, 2007) available at https://www.kpbs.org/news/2007/aug/21/diebold-
voting-machine-company-changes-name-to/.
26
2009, reporting a $45 million loss, 20 and nine months later, in May 2010, ES&S sold
Premier to Dominion.
63. The Diebold technology Dominion obtained when it acquired Premier has a
long and troubled track record.
a. In 2003, it was discovered that Diebold had left approximately 40,000 files
that made up its foundational e-voting security software code, GEMS,
entirely unprotected on a publicly accessible website. 21
b. Following the discovery that the GEMS code was publicly available,
computer programmers around the world began probing and testing it. In
2012, a Harper’s Magazine article titled “How to Rig an Election”
summarized, “GEMS turned out to be a vote rigger’s dream. According to
[one investigator’s] analysis, it could be hacked, remotely or on-site, using
any off-the-shelf version of Microsoft Access, and password protection was
missing for supervisor functions. Not only could multiple users gain access
to the system after only one had logged in, but unencrypted audit logs
allowed any trace of vote rigging to be wiped from the record.” 22
20
Ryan Paul, Diebold impeaches e-voting unit, sells it off for $5 million, ARS TECHNICA
(Sept. 4, 2009), available at https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/09/diebold-elects-to-
get-out-of-the-voting-machine-business/.
21
Victoria Collier, How to Rig an Election, HARPER’S MAGAZINE (Nov. 2012), available
at https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/.
22
Id.
27
c. In 2004, a team of computer scientists from Johns Hopkins University and
Rice University concluded about the GEMS code: “this voting system is far
below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts
. . . . [It] is unsuitable for use in a general election.” 23 More broadly, the team
wrote, “The model where individual vendors write proprietary code to run
our elections appears to be unreliable, and if we do not change the process of
designing our voting systems, we will have no confidence that our election
results will reflect the will of the electorate. We owe it to ourselves and to
our future to have robust, well-designed election systems to preserve the
bedrock of our democracy.”
d. In 2006, a team of computer scientists at Princeton University analyzed the
security of the Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, then one of the most
widely-deployed electronic voting platforms in the United States. They
found, “Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal
votes with little risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of
the records, audit logs, and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even
careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss. . . .
Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine, or to a memory card
that will later be inserted into a machine, can install said malicious software
23
Takayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, Aviel D. Rubin, and Dan S. Wallach, Analysis of
an Electronic Voting System, IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy and Privacy 2004,
IEEE COMPUTER SOCIETY PRESS, May 2004, available at https://avirubin.com/vote.pdf
(Ex. 1).
28
using a simple method that takes as little as one minute. . . . AccuVote-TS
machines are susceptible to voting machine viruses – computer viruses that
can spread malicious software automatically and invisibly from machine to
machine during normal pre- and post-election activity.” 24
e. The Princeton team prepared a video demonstration showing how malware
could shift votes cast for one candidate to another. 25 In the video, mock
election votes were cast in favor of George Washington by a 4 to 1 margin,
but the paper print-out that reported the results showed Benedict Arnold
prevailing by a margin of 3 to 2. Malicious vote-stealing malware was the
sole reason for reallocation of votes from Washington to Arnold, and the
malware deleted itself after the election, leaving no evidence that the voting
machine was ever hijacked or any votes stolen. 26
64. Despite these security weaknesses, Dominion incorporated GEMS into its
voting machines after acquiring the technology in 2010. By 2011, Dominion Voting
Systems was selling voting systems that had updated GEMS software at the core of their
DNA. 27
24
Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten, Security Analysis of the
Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine, USENIX (Sep. 13, 2006),
https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/evt07/tech/full_papers/feldman/feldman_html/index
.html (Ex. 2).
25
See Security Demonstration of DieBold AccuVote-TS Electronic Voting Machine,
YOUTUBE (Nov. 30, 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8TXuRA4IQM&t=20s.
26
See id.
27
Ken Detzner, Voting System Qualification Test Report Dominion Voting Systems, Inc.
GEMS Release 1.21.6, Version 1, FLA. DEP’T OF STATE (Mar. 2012),
29
65. Vote integrity issues with Dominion’s voting systems predated its
acquisition and incorporation of GEMS, both in the U.S. and abroad. In 2009, during a
New York congressional election, Dominion’s software allowed voters to vote for more
than one candidate, and its faulty machines froze during operation due to insufficient
memory. 28 In the 2010 general election in the Philippines, allegations of technical problems
and offers of vote manipulation were rampant. 29 In that election, where Dominion’s
products were in more than 2,200 local municipalities, a Dominion “glitch” caused voting
machines to incorrectly read ballots, while poll machines supplied by Smartmatic had
wrongly configured flash cards affecting the automated count. 30 A Product Manager of
Dominion indicated that more than 76,000 compact flash cards had to be configured just
days before the election.
66. Dominion continued selling and leasing the troubled AccuVote voting
machine as recently as 2017. 31
https://files.floridados.gov/media/697908/dominion-gems-release-1216-version-1-test-
report.pdf (Ex. 3).
28
Dominion also handled 2009 NY congressional poll, ABS-CBN News, May 7,
2010, https://news.abs-cbn.com/nation/05/07/10/dominion-also-handled-2009-ny-
congressional-poll.
29
See, e.g., Reuters, “Aquino unfazed by Philippine poll fraud allegations,” May 27, 2010,
https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-48840420100527
30
Ina Reformina, Source code firm Dominion sheds light on voting glitch, ABS-CBN
News, May 7, 2010, https://news.abs-cbn.com/nation/05/07/10/source-code-firm-
dominion-sheds-light-voting-glitch.
31
See, e.g., Notice of Contract: Contract No. 071B7700117, State of Michigan Enterprise
Procurement: Department of Technology, Management, and Budget, 48 (2017),
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/071B7700117_Dominion_555356_7.pdf.
30
67. Dominion voting systems reliant on GEMS were used in the 2020 general
election.
68. Following the 2016 general election, a left-leaning advocacy organization
and individual voters filed an action in the United States District Court for the Northern
District of Georgia, seeking to set aside the results of a 2016 Congressional race in which
the Republican candidate had prevailed. The Curling v. Raffensperger plaintiffs alleged
“sophisticated hackers – whether Russian or otherwise – had the capability and intent to
manipulate elections in the United States.” 32 They later asked the court to enter a
preliminary injunction barring Georgia in the 2020 general election from using Dominion’s
ballot marking devices from its Democracy Suite 5.5-A voting system. See Curling v.
Raffensperger, 493 F.Supp.2d 1264, 1267 (N.D. Ga. 2020).
69. On October 11, 2020, just three weeks before the 2020 general election,
Judge Amy Totenberg 33 issued an order regarding the Dominion voting system’s security
risks and the potential for fraud or irregularities. 34 Judge Totenberg found substantial
evidence that the Dominion system was plagued by security risks and the potential for votes
to be improperly rejected or misallocated. She wrote, “The Plaintiffs’ national security
experts convincingly present evidence that this is not a question of ‘might this actually ever
32
Amended Complaint, Doc. 15, N.D. Ga. No. 2017CV292233 (Ex. 4).
33
Given the hyper-partisan nature of the allegations and assertions set forth in Dominion’s
Complaints against Lindell and others, it is worth noting that Judge Totenberg was
nominated to the federal bench by President Obama in January of 2011.
34
Curling v. Raffensperger, No. 493 F.Supp.d 1264, 1267 (N.D. Ga. 2020) (Ex. 5).
31
happen?’ – but ‘when it will happen,’ especially if further protective measures are not
taken.” 35
70. Judge Totenberg’s findings reflected many of the same issues which had
existed more than ten years earlier with the predicate Diebold GEMS system, ultimately
purchased by Dominion:
• “[H]uge volume of significant evidence regarding the security risks

and deficits in the [Dominion] system as implemented . . .”
• “Evidence presented in this case overall indicates the possibility

generally of hacking or malware attacks occurring in voting systems
and this particular system through a variety of routes – whether
through physical access and use of a USB flash drive or another form
of mini-computer, or connection with the internet.”
• “[E]vidence credibly explaining how malware can mask itself when

inserted in voting software systems or QR codes, erase the malware’s
tracks, alter data, or create system disruption.”
• “Defendants [including Dominion] do not appear to actually dispute

that cybersecurity risks are significant in the electoral sphere.”
• Dominion’s Director of Product Strategy and Security

“acknowledged the potential for compromise of the [Dominion]
operating system, by exploiting a vulnerability, that could allow a
hacker to take over the Voting machine and compromise the security
of the voting system software.”
• “[F]ormidable amount of evidence that casts serious doubt on the

validity of the use of the [risk-limiting audit statistical method for
auditing election outcomes] with the current [Dominion] system.” 36
71. Although Judge Totenberg declined the Curling plaintiffs’ request for
injunctive relief requiring paper ballots—because she felt bound by Eleventh Circuit
35
Id. at 1342.
36
Id. at 1278, 1280, 1281, 1283, 1287, 1306.
32
precedent and because there was insufficient time to implement the requested relief prior
to the election—she nevertheless expressed profound concern regarding the Dominion
voting system and Dominion’s less than transparent actions:
The Court’s Order has delved deep into the true risks posed by the new
[Dominion] voting system as well as its manner of implementation. These
risks are neither hypothetical nor remote under the current circumstances.
The insularity of the Defendants’ and Dominion’s stance here in evaluation
and management of the security and vulnerability of the BMD system does
not benefit the public or citizens’ confident exercise of the franchise. The
stealth vote alteration or operational interference risks posed by malware that
can be effectively invisible to detection, whether intentionally seeded or not,
are high once implanted.
The Plaintiffs’ national cybersecurity experts convincingly present evidence

that this is not a question of ‘might this actually ever happen?’ — but ‘when
it will happen,’ especially if further protective measures are not taken. Given
the masking nature of malware and the current systems described here, if the
State and Dominion simply stand by and say, “we have never seen it,” the
future does not bode well. 37
72. In addition to her December 2019 letter to Dominion’s parent company,
Staple Street Capital, Senator Warren noted how Dominion kept their operations under a
cloak of secrecy: “These vendors make little to no information publicly available on how
much money they dedicate to research and development, or to maintenance of their voting
systems and technology. They also share little or no information regarding annual profits
or executive compensation for their owners.” 38
37
Id. at 1341-42.
38
Warren, Klobuchar, Wyden, and Pocan Investigate Vulnerabilities and Shortcomings of
Election Technology Industry with Ties to Private Equity, Elizabeth Warren: United States
Senator for MA (Dec. 10, 2019), https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-
klobuchar-wyden-and-pocan-investigate-vulnerabilities-and-shortcomings-of-election-
technology-industry-with-ties-to-private-equity.
33
73. In August 2018, Senator Klobuchar stated on nationally broadcast television,
Meet the Press, “I’m very concerned you could have a hack that finally went through. You
have 21 states that were hacked into, they didn’t find out about it for a year.” 39
74. Senator Wyden, also in the lead up to the 2020 election, explained during an
interview, “[T]oday, you can have a voting machine with an open connection to the
internet, which is the equivalent of stashing American ballots in the Kremlin. . . . [As] of
today, what we see in terms of foreign interference in 2020 is going to make 2016 look like
small potatoes. This is a national security issue! . . . The total lack of cybersecurity
standards is especially troubling . . . But the lack of cybersecurity standards leads local
officials to unwittingly buy overpriced, insecure junk. Insecure junk guarantees three
things: a big payday for the election-tech companies, long lines on Election Day, and other
hostile foreign governments can influence the outcome of elections through hacks.” 40
75. After failing certification in Texas in January 2019, on October 2 and 3, 2019,
Dominion again presented its Democracy Suite 5.5-A voting system in Texas for
examination and certification. 41 It failed the second time as well.
39
NBC News, Amy Klobuchar: Concerned That A 2018 Election Hack Could Succeed
(Full) | Meet The Press | NBC News, YouTube (Aug. 5, 2018),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wtUxqqLh6U.
40
Mark Sullivan, Senator Ron Wyden: The GOP is ‘making a mockery’ of election security,
FAST COMPANY (Feb. 19, 2020), available at
https://www.fastcompany.com/90465001/senator-ron-wyden-the-gop-is-making-a-
mockery-of-election-security.
41
Jose A. Esparza, Report of Review of Dominion Voting Systems Democracy Suite 5.5A,
Tex. Sec’y of State (Jan. 24, 2020), available at
https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/forms/sysexam/dominion-d-suite-5.5-a.pdf (Ex. 6).
34
76. “The examiner reports identified multiple hardware and software issues . . .
Specifically, the examiner reports raise concerns about whether the Democracy Suite 5.5-
A system is suitable for its intended purpose; operates efficiently and accurately; and is
safe from fraudulent or unauthorized manipulation. 42
77. On January 24, 2020, the Texas Secretary of State denied certification of the
system for use in Texas elections. Texas’s designated experts who evaluated Democracy
Suite 5.5-A flagged risk from the system’s connectivity to the internet despite “vendor
claims” that the system is “protected by hardening of data and IP address features.” 43, 44
“[T]he machines could be vulnerable to a rogue operator on a machine if the election LAN
is not confined to just the machines used for the election . . . The ethernet port is active on
the ICX BMD during an election. . . . This is an unnecessary open port during the voting
period and could be used as an attack vector.” 45 Other security vulnerabilities found by
Texas include use of a “rack mounted server” which “would typically be in a room other
than a room used for the central count” and would present a security risk “since it is out of
sight.” 46
42
Id.
43
Letter from Brandon Hurley to Keith Ingram (Feb. 19, 2019) (Ex. 7).
44
James Sneeringer, Ph.D., Voting System Examination: Dominion Voting Systems
Democracy Suite 5.5-A 2, 5 (TX Sec. of State Elections Div.), available at
https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/forms/sysexam/oct2019-sneeringer.pdf.
45
Tom Watson, Democracy Suite 5.5A 4-5 (TX Sec. of State Elections Div.), available at
https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/forms/sysexam/oct2019-watson.pdf.
46
Id.
35
78. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton later explained, “We have not approved
these voting systems based on repeated software and hardware issues. It was determined
they were not accurate and that they failed — they had a vulnerability to fraud and
unauthorized manipulation.” 47
79. Election officials and voting system manufacturers, including Dominion’s
CEO, have publicly denied that voting machines are connected to the internet and,
therefore, not susceptible to attack via the internet. 48 Dominion’s CEO, John Poulos,
testified in December 2020 that Dominion’s voting systems are “closed systems that are
not networked meaning they are not connected to the internet.” 49 This is false.
80. For example, in his May 2016 interview, Dominion Vice President
Obradovic stated, “All devices of the ImageCast series have additional options such as
modems for wireless and wired transfer of results from the very polling place….” 50
81. Dominion has even tried to hide its systems’ internet connectivity from the
election officials who are ostensibly in charge of running the elections where Dominion’s
systems are used. Vice reported in 2019, “[A] group of election security experts have found
47
Brad Johnson, Texas Rejected Use of Dominion Voting System Software Due to
Efficiency Issues, The Texan, Nov. 19, 2020, https://thetexan.news/texas-rejected-use-of-
dominion-voting-system-software-due-to-efficiency-issues/.
48
Kim Zetter, Exclusive: Critical U.S. Election Systems Have Been Left Exposed Online
Despite Official Denials, Vice (Aug. 8, 2019), available at
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kxzk9/exclusive-critical-us-election-systems-have-
been-left-exposed-online-despite-official-denials.
49
See https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2020/12/31/oomf/ (emphasis added).
Again, Google’s YouTube deleted this video shortly after it began to gain circulation.
50
https://ekonomijaibiznis.mk/ControlPanel/Upload/Free_Editions/wZ0X5bz60KCgpcvF
cEBvA/maj%202016%20ENG/mobile/index.html#p=33
36
what they believe to be nearly three dozen backend election systems in 10 states connected
to the internet over the last year, including some in critical swing states. These include
systems in nine Wisconsin counties, in four Michigan counties, and in seven Florida
counties. . . . [A]t least some jurisdictions were not aware that their systems were online[.]
. . . Election officials were publicly saying that their systems were never connected to
the internet because they didn’t know differently.” 51 In 2020, a team of election security
experts found more than 35 voting systems were online. 52
82. In 2020, NBC reported that voting machines were in fact connected to the
internet, making them susceptible to hacking, and “The three largest voting manufacturing
companies — Election Systems & Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart
InterCivic — have acknowledged they all put modems in some of their tabulators and
scanners. . . . Those modems connect to cell phone networks, which, in turn, are connected
to the internet . . . . ‘Once a hacker starts talking to the voting machine through the modem
. . . they can hack the software in the voting machine and make it cheat in future elections,’
[a Princeton computer science professor and expert on elections] said.” 53
51
Id. (emphasis added).
52
Kevin Monahan, Cynthia McFadden, and Didi Martinez, ‘Online and Vulnerable’:
Experts find nearly three dozen U.S. voting systems connected to internet, NBC News, Jan.
10, 2020, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-
experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436.
53
Id.
37
83. In a 2019 story about the DEF CON hacking conference, NBC News
reported that Dominion avoided participation in the conference; that hackers can target
voting systems with ease; and that Dominion’s voting machines are connected to the
internet. 54
54
NBC News, How Hackers Can Target Voting Machines | NBC News
Now, YouTube (Aug. 12, 2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtWP0KDx2hA.
38
84. In 2017, Dominion refused to respond to CNNTech’s request for comment
about its hackable voting machines. 55 CNNTech also asked Jake Braun, a former security
advisor for the Obama administration and organizer of the DEF CON hacking conference,
“Do you believe that right now, we are in a position where the 2020 election will be
hacked?” He answered, “Oh, without question. I mean the 2020 election will be hacked no
matter what we do. . . .” 56
85. The Congressional Task Force on Election Security’s Final Report in January
2018 identified the vulnerability of U.S. elections to foreign interference: 57 “According to
DHS, Russian agents targeted election systems in at least 21 states, stealing personal voter
55
CNN Business, We watched hackers break into voting machines, YouTube (Aug. 11,
2017), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA2DWMHgLnc.
56
Id.
57
CONGRESSIONAL TASK FORCE ON ELECTION SECURITY, FINAL REPORT (2018) (Ex. 8).
39
records and positioning themselves to carry out future attacks. . . media also reported that
the Russians accessed at least one U.S. voting software supplier . . . in most of the targeted
states officials saw only preparations for hacking . . . [but] in Arizona and Illinois, voter
registration databases were reportedly breached. . . If 2016 was all about preparation, what
more can they do and when will they strike? . . . [W]hen asked in March about the prospects
for future interference by Russia, then-FBI Director James Comey testified before
Congress that: ‘[T]hey’ll be back. They’ll be back in 2020. They may be back in 2018.’” 58
86. The Congressional Task Force on Election Security report also stated that
“many jurisdictions are using voting machines that are highly vulnerable to an outside
attack,” in part because “many machines have foreign-made internal parts.” Therefore, “a
hacker’s point-of-entry into an entire make or model of voting machine could happen well
before that voting machine rolls off the production line.” 59
87. In 2016, “Russian agents probed voting systems in all 50 states, and
successfully breached the voter registration systems of Arizona and Illinois.” 60 The Robert
Mueller report and a previous indictment of twelve Russian agents confirmed that Russian
hackers had targeted vendors that provide election software, and Russian intelligence
58
Id. at 6-7.
59
Id. at 25 (citing Matt Blaze, et al., DEFCON 25 Voting Machine Hacking Village: Rep.
on Cyber Vulnerabilities in U.S. Election Equipment, Databases, and Infrastructure, 16
(2017) available at
https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-
25/DEF%20CON%2025%20voting%20village%20report.pdf).
60
Jordan Wilkie, ‘They think they are above the law’: the firms that own America’s voting
system, THE GUARDIAN, Apr. 23, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2019/apr/22/us-voting-machine-private-companies-voter-registration.
40
officers “targeted employees of [REDACTED], a voting technology company that
developed software used by numerous U.S. counties to manage voter rolls, and installed
malware on the company network.” 61
88. A 2015 report issued by the Brennan Center for Justice listed two and a half-
pages of instances of issues with voting machines, including a 2014 post-election
investigation into machine crashes in Virginia which found “voters in Virginia Beach
observed that when they selected one candidate, the machine would register their selection
for a different candidate.” 62 The investigation also found that the Advanced Voting
Solutions WINVote machine, which is Wi-Fi-enabled, “had serious security
vulnerabilities” because wireless cards on the system could allow “an external party to
access the [machine] and modify the data [on the machine] without notice from a nearby
location,” and “an attacker could join the wireless ad-hoc network, record voting data or
inject malicious [data.]” 63
89. HBO’s documentary Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, 64
details the vulnerability of election voting machines, including Dominion’s. Harri Hursti,
61
Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election,
p. 50, available at https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download.
62
Lawrence Norden and Christopher Famighetti, AMERICA'S VOTING MACHINES AT
RISK, Brennan Ctr. for Just., 13 (Sep. 15, 2014), available at
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2019-
08/Report_Americas_Voting_Machines_At_Risk.pdf (Ex. 9).
63
Id.
64
Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels, and Sarah Teale, Kill Chain: The Cyber War on
America’s Elections, HBO (Mar. 26, 2020), available at
https://play.hbomax.com/feature/urn:hbo:feature:GXk7d3QAJHI7CZgEAACa0?reentere
d=true&userProfileType=liteUserProfile.
41
a world-renowned data security expert, showed that he hacked digital voting machines to
change votes in 2005. According to Hursti, the same Dominion machine that he hacked in
2005 was slated for use in 20 states for the 2020 election.
90. In the documentary, Marilyn Marks, Executive Director of Coalition of Good
Governance (one of the Plaintiffs in Curling), stated, “In Georgia, we ended up seeing the
strangest thing. In a heavily Democratic precinct, there was one machine out of a seven-
machine precinct that showed heavy Republican wins, while the precinct itself and all of
the other machines were showing heavy Democratic wins.” Dr. Kellie Ottoboni,
Department of Statistics, UC Berkeley, stated the likelihood of this happening is “an
astronomically small chance.” It was less than one in a million. 65
65
Screenshot from https://www.facebook.com/KillChainDoc/videos/2715244992032273/.
42
91. In December 2020, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity &
Infrastructure Agency (“CISA”) revealed that hackers infiltrated SolarWinds software. 66
Despite CEO Poulos’s claim that Dominion had never used SolarWinds, an archival
screenshot of Dominion’s website shows a now-erased SolarWinds logo (screenshot
below). Dominion in fact did use SolarWinds.
92. Dominion refuses to provide access to experts to forensically investigate its
“proprietary” software, machines, and systems, to further establish that its machines have
been hacked. This is telling in and of itself. Dominion denies the public access to the
evidence to substantiate that it has been hacked. It silences anyone who makes this claim
while simultaneously denying access to the key information one way or the other.
66
Zachary Stieber, Dominion Voting Systems Uses Firm That Was Hacked, THE EPOCH
TIMES, Dec. 14, 2020, https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/dominion-voting-
systems-uses-firm-that-was-hacked_3617507.html.
43
D. Gaslighting: The REAL Big Lie
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same
tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the
Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”
93. In the wake of the 2020 presidential election and amidst a growing wave of
public concern that the election results had been interfered with, tampered with, or
manipulated to such a degree as to impact the outcome against Donald Trump and in favor
of Joe Biden, Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency (“CISA”) publicly claimed the 2020 election was the “most secure in
American history.” Dominion proudly touted that claim as vindication of its role in an
election many claimed was stolen, and even continues to cite CISA’s claim in support of
its allegation that Mike Lindell’s cries of election fraud are a “Big Lie.” The real Big Lie
is, in fact, CISA’s claim that the 2020 election was the “most secure in American history.”
94. For starters, what neither CISA nor Dominion nor Smartmatic bothered to
tell the American people is that Dominion itself is a member of CISA’s Election
Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council, and so wielded self-serving influence over
CISA’s proclamations that the 2020 election was historically unprecedented in its security.
And, there is ample evidence that the 2020 presidential election was the furthest thing from
secure—let alone “the most secure in American history.”
95. On Monday, November 2, 2020, the night before the 2020 general election,
Dominion forced unplanned and unannounced software uploads into its machines. In some
counties in Georgia, Dominion’s irregular software update caused voting machines to crash
44
the next day during the election. The supervisor of one County Board of Elections stated
that Dominion “uploaded something last night, which is not normal, and it caused a glitch,”
and “[t]hat is something that they don’t ever do. I’ve never seen them update anything the
day before the election.” 67 Notably, Dominion had earlier publicly denied that any such
updates just prior to election day were made and that its machines were connected to the
internet—both of which were false statements. 68
96. During the 2020 general election Dominion machines across the country
were connected to the internet when they should not have been. A Dominion representative
assigned to Wayne County, Michigan reported numerous irregularities with the election
process and Dominion’s machines, including that the voting machines were connected to
the internet and that the machines had scanning issues.
97. In Wisconsin, Dominion machines that were not supposed to be connected
to the internet were in fact connected to a “hidden” Wi-Fi network during voting. 69
Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, a democrat political operative, was given internet access to a
hidden Wi-Fi network at the Wisconsin election center where votes were being counted. 70
67
Kim Zetter, Cause of Election Day glitch in Georgia counties still
unexplained, POLITICO, Nov. 4, 2020,
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/georgia-election-machine-glitch-434065.
68
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/dominion-voting-machines-were-updated-
before-election-georgia-official-confirms_3604668.html
69
M.D. Kittle, EMAILS: GREEN BAY’S ‘HIDDEN’ ELECTION NETWORKS, WISCONSIN
SPOTLIGHT, Mar. 21, 2021, https://wisconsinspotlight.com/emails-green-bays-hidden-
election-networks/.
70
M.D. Kittle, Democrats’ Operative Got Secret Internet Connection at Wisconsin
Election Center, Emails Show, DAILY SIGNAL, Mar. 23, 2021, available at
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/03/23/democrats-operative-got-secret-internet-
connection-at-wisconsin-election-center-emails-show/.
45
Spitzer-Rubenstein received an email from Trent James, director of event technology at
Green Bay’s Central Count location, which stated, “One SSID [for a Wi-Fi network] will
be hidden and it’s: 2020vote. There will be no passwords or splash page for this one and it
should only be used for the sensitive machines that need to be connected to the internet.”
Four other individuals were copied on the email.
98. Attorneys representing a Democratic candidate who lost in 2020 filed a brief
raising Dominion machine errors and election issues, arguing, “discrepancies between the
number of votes cast and the number of votes tabulated have been pervasive in the counting
of ballots for this race . . . In addition to the table-to-machine count discrepancies of which
the parties are aware, there have also been procedural inconsistencies that question the
integrity of the process . . . [T]he audit results revealed ‘unexplained discrepancies’ but
failed to provide any explanation . . . what caused those discrepancies or if they were ever
resolved . . . In this case, there is reason to believe that voting tabulation machines misread
hundreds if not thousands of valid votes as undervotes . . .” 71
99. Following the 2020 election, state lawmakers initiated investigations and
audits of the results, often directing particular attention to Dominion’s voting systems.
a. Congressman Paul Gosar called for a special session of the Arizona
legislature to investigate the accuracy and reliability of the Dominion ballot
software. 72 On January 27, 2021, the Maricopa County, Arizona Board of
71
Oswego County, Index No. ECF 2020-1376, dated February 1, 2021 at 2.
72
Hannah Bleau, Rep. Paul Gosar Calls on Arizona Officials to ‘Investigate the Accuracy’
of the Dominion Ballot Software After Reports of ‘Glitches,’ BREITBART, Nov. 7,
46
Supervisors voted unanimously to approve an audit of the 2020 election
results and a forensic audit of Dominion’s voting machines. 73 The Arizona
senate hired a team of forensic auditors consisting of four companies to
review Maricopa’s election process. 74 A week later, attorneys sent each of
those four companies a threatening cease-and-desist letter, improperly
attempting to influence the reviews. 75 The audit began in April 2021 and,
despite nearly-continuous efforts by left-minded litigants and certain
Maricopa County officials to thwart it, is scheduled and on track to conclude
on May 14, 2021.
b. In the Michigan case of Bailey v. Antrim County, Cyber Ninjas and CyFir
have found Dominion voting machines are connected to the internet, either
by Wi-Fi or a LAN wire; there are multiple ways election results could be
modified and leave no trace; and the same problems have been around for 10
years or more. 76
2020, https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/07/rep-gosar-calls-on-az-officials-
investigate-the-accuracy-of-the-dominion-ballot-software-after-reports-of-glitches/.
73
AUDITING ELECTIONS EQUIPMENT IN MARICOPA COUNTY,
https://www.maricopa.gov/5681/Elections-Equipment-Audit (last visited Apr. 18, 2021).
74
Press Release, Arizona State Senate, Arizona Senate hires auditor to review 2020
election in Maricopa County (Mar. 31, 2021) (on file with author) (Ex. 10).
75
Letter from Sara Chimene-Weiss, James E. Barton II, Roopali H. Desai, and Sarah R.
Gonski to Cyber Ninjas, CyFir, Digital Discovery, and Wake Technology Services (Apr.
6, 2021) (Ex. 11).
76
Pl.’s Collective Resp. to Defs.’ and Non-Party Counties’ Mots. to Quash and for
Protective Orders at Exs. 7-8 (April 9, 2021), Bailey v. Antrim County (No. 20-9238).
47
c. In that same case, forensic analysts gained access to the Dominion voting
machines used in the November 2020 election and determined the following:
i. “The system intentionally generates an enormously high number of
ballot errors … The intentional errors lead to bulk adjudication of
ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail.”
ii. “[T]he computer system shows vote adjudication logs for prior years;
but all adjudication log entries for the 2020 election cycle are missing
… Removal of these files violates state law.”
iii. “[A]ll’’ server security logs prior to 11:03 pm on November 4, 2020
are missing. This means that all security logs for the day after the
election, on election day, and prior to election day are gone … Other
server logs before November 4, 2020 are present; therefore, there is
no reasonable explanation for the security logs to be missing.” 77
d. On April 12, 2021, New Hampshire Governor Christopher Sununu
announced he had signed legislation appointing an audit of a Rockingham
County race that relied upon Dominion voting machines after suspicious
uniform shorting of vote tallies for four candidates was uncovered.
77
Allied Security Operations Group Revised Preliminary Summary v.2, Antrim Michigan
Forensics Report, 12/13/2020, available at
https://www.depernolaw.com/uploads/2/7/0/2/27029178/ex_8-9.pdf.
48
e. On March 23, 2020 the Wisconsin Assembly ordered an investigation into
the 2020 election. Wisconsin uses Dominion voting machines. 78
f. Investigations into election irregularities are also ongoing in Pennsylvania
and Georgia, states which also use Dominion voting machines.
Even the Biden administration has recently sanctioned Russia for election interference and
hacking. 79
100. In early 2021, a data scientist, Douglas G. Frank, PhD, uncovered an
algorithm or “key”—a sixth degree polynomial—that operates in the electronic voting
machines in a number of states to determine the ballots cast. These algorithms are unique
to each particular state. In other words, the algorithm used in Minnesota does not work next
door in Wisconsin. Likewise, the algorithm in Ohio does not work in Michigan or in
Pennsylvania. That fact further demonstates an algorithm is at work and the voter results
are not random. Each algorithm is determined at the state level to shift votes based on the
particular and peculiar demographics of each state. The examples below are from counties
in Minnesota, but Dr. Frank has done the same analysis in a number of other states,
including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Washington, Colorado, and
Florida, and reached the same results and conclusions.
78
Scott Bauer, Wisconsin Assembly OKs investigation into 2020 election, FOX6 NEWS
MILWAUKEE, Mar. 23, 2020, https://www.fox6now.com/news/wisconsin-assembly-
approves-election-investigation.
79
See, e.g., Truak, Natasha and Amanda Macias, “Biden administration slaps new
sanctions on Russia for cyberattacks, election interference,” Apr. 14, 2021,
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/biden-administration-sanctions-russia-for-cyber-
attacks-election-interference.html.
49
101. Specifically, the algorithm is a mathematical computation of the actual
registrations compared to the actual ballots cast. When applied to the 2019 census data
and the registration data, that algorithm enables the prediction of the number of ballots cast
for each voter age group in any given county in a state with near 100% certainty—without
seeing the actual results. The key for each state applies with 100% certainty or near 100%
certainty for every county within that state. And, as stated above, each state has a unique
key. That does not happen in a random world.
102. Specifically, with respect to the charts for the respective Minnesota counties
below:
a. The data is shown in graphs and compiled from three different databases:
BLUE CURVE. Population data extracted from the 2019 U.S. census at
census.gov. This is the blue curve on each chart for the counties examined,
which shows the census data per age group.
BLACK LINE. The state registration database for used in the November 3,
2020 election. This is the black line on each chart.
RED LINE. The state voter database with recorded results after the election.
This is the red line on each chart.
50
b. The blue, black, and red lines on the graphs are data. They are not speculative
or calculated. The are comprised of 100% data. The algorithm itself, a sixth
degree polynomial, is a mathematical computation of the actual registrations
on each graph (black line) compared to the actual ballots cast (red line). The
polynomial can be described as a “key” because it works in every county in
a state e.g. Minnesota. The algorithm is regulating voter turnout by age as
shown by the fact that voter turnout by age is in the exact same relative
proportion to registered voters in each county in any given state. What
happens in one county happens in all counties in a given state. The almost-
51
perfect correlation also means that by taking the census data and the
registration data and then applying the algorithm, the number of ballots cast
in a county can be predicted with virtually perfect certainty without even
seeing the results.
c. To discover the key, Dr. Frank first charted the total voting population that
could be registered (dark blue line). Dr. Frank then layered in the registered
voters (black line). Next, Dr. Frank included the actual ballots cast (red line).
When all of the bumps in the black line (registrations) are compared to those
in the red line (ballots), they look very familiar. The red line is almost a direct
image of the black line, but just lower on the graph. Simply graphing the
ratio between the black and the red creates the polynomial. The polynomial
becomes the key. The key is then used and works in every county in a given
state. When the key is applied, it generates the light blue line (predicted
ballots).
d. Dr. Frank applied the algorithm (a sixth degree polynomial) and predicted
the number of ballots cast per age group in each county. This is represented
by the light blue line (predicted ballots). The red line (actual ballots cast)
tracks almost identically with the ballots predicted by the key. The light blue
line (predicted ballots, using the “key”) also tracks with the black line
(registrations). Those curves also follow the shape of the census (i.e., the
population).
52
e. As found for several other states, in Minnesota, Dr. Frank’s algorithm
consistently predicted voter participation demographics to remarkably
unnatural precision, with nearly every correlation coefficient equal or greater
than 0.990. In Minnesota alone, he predicted 13 counties with R = 1.000,
33 counties with R = 0.999, 22 counties with R = 0.998, and all the rest
greater than 0.994 except for three, the worst of which was R = 0.976—still
impossibly high to be a random event. 80 Three such counties are depicted in
the charts below:
80
All of the county charts can be viewed at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkY2LRA1ijQ
53
54
f. The analysis of the data shows an ability to predict ballot demographics with
a degree of precision approaching 100%—a level of accuracy that would be
impossible without the activity of a regulating algorithm. And, the degree of
precision observed confirms that algorithms had real-time access to voting
databases and voting activity before, during, and following the November 3,
2020 election.
103. Dr. Frank also found such a key in all 88 counties in Ohio, all 64 counties in
Colorado, in all 14 counties evaluated in Florida, and in all 14 counties evaluated in
Pennsylvania. Elections should not function like this in a normal statistical way. That is
why Dr. Frank concludes that someone is deciding what this key is before the election and
then making every county fit this key. And the key is able to be used to determine elections
because the electronic voting machines are computers—computers highly vulnerable to
hacking, tampering, and cyberattacks. 81
104. In addition, Exhibit 12 showsa subset of 20 documented successful hacks
through the election management system in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia,
Wiscinsin, and Arizona resulting in a total 555,864 votes switched from President Trump
to candidate Vice President Biden in the 2020 general election. These hacks came primarily
from within China and are identified by the date, location, and the network from which the
hack orginated and the location and network that was the target of the hack. The network
81
Dr. Frank’s analysis for these states (and others) is viewable at
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC57eE4MaR0oIwTinM__WQSg.
55
packets of information flowing from these hacks was capturedand recorded in real time as
discussed in the documentary, “Absolute 9-0.” 82
105. In short, every mainstream media “reporter” and social media pundit
continues to label the fact of tampering and interference in the 2020 election as “baseless,”
“false,” “debunked,” or some similarly approved newspeak. But “baseless,” “false,”
“debunked,” and similar adjectives are not synonyms for “disputed.” The media and big-
tech orthodoxy may dispute the sources, methodologies, or conclusions that lead many to
question the 2020 election, but they are beyond disingenuous to claim such questions have
no basis or have been conclusively or objectively answered in favor of their view. They
are ignoring the cacophony of complaints from the political left prior to November 3, 2020.
And they are literally asking Americans to ignore open and obvious evidence—evidence
of events they themselves predicted would occur—and instead yield meekly to their
campaign of enforced doublethink.
E. Shut Up Or Else
“Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and
there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were
not mad.”
106. Lindell has spoken out personally about Dominion, about electronic voting
machines more generally, and the importance of election integrity. And, Lindell has spoken
accurately about these issues of great public concern. He has presented evidence backed
82
See https://www.worldviewweekend.com/tv/video/mike-lindell-presents-absolutely-9-
0, beginning of the documentary through the 16 minute mark.
56
by expert analysis to raise public awareness of election integrity issues—particularly
relating to the hacking of electronic voting machines like Dominion’s machines. For those
actions Dominion sued him, baselessly alleging defamation and seeking a headline
grabbing, fictitious $1.3 billion in damages. 83
107. However, Dominion’s true purpose is not simply to silence Lindell, but to
silence anyone else who might speak out on election fraud. Thus, Dominion also sued the
company Mike Lindell founded and owns. MyPillow made no statements about Dominion.
Instead, by suing MyPillow, Dominion seeks to punish Lindell for his statements by
damaging his reputation, his finances, and his business. More fundamentally, Dominion—
in cohoots with Smartmatic—also seeks to send a message to others: “Shut up or else.”
108. That is why Dominion’s campaign also included bragging publicly about
having its lawyers at Clare Locke send threatening letters to over 150 individuals
demanding they cease and desist from commenting on the election or Dominion. 84 Among
the recipients of these shotgun-style attack letters are dozens of everyday citizens—not
public figures—who volunteered as poll watchers in the 2020 election and signed sworn
statements about election irregularities they witnessed. Dominion found out who they were
and dispatched its lawyers to send them threatening cease-and-desist letters, falsely
83
See Case No. 1:21-cv-00445-CJN; US Dominion, Inc., et al. v. My Pillow, Inc. and
Michael J. Lindell; in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (“the
D.C. Lawsuit”).
84
Hannah Knowles and Emma Brown, Dominion threatens MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell
with lawsuit over ‘false and conspiratorial’ claims, Washington Post, Jan. 18,
2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/18/dominion-mike-lindell-
mypillow/.
57
claiming they had defamed Dominion when these private citizens never mentioned
Dominion. Dominion then illegally demanded these private citizens preserve all
communications, emails, texts—private or otherwise—and a host of other materials.
Dominion’s and Clare Locke’s threats constitute witness intimidation.
109. However, Dominion did not stop there. To give its letters further intimidating
weight, Dominion’s public campaign extended to suing news networks, like Fox News,
and individuals for billions of dollars. These lawsuits were amplified by a high-powered,
well-orchestrated publicity campaign designed to spread their allegations to as many
people as possible. Dominion intends for its media blitz to inflict a crippling fear of
becoming the next target for destruction if one dares to raise any question about the use
and integrity of voting machines during elections.
110. Through aggressive litigation, threats of litigation, and publicization of these
activities, Dominion seeks to intimidate those who might dare to come forward with
evidence of election fraud, stop criticism of election voting machines, and suppress
information about how its machines have been hacked in American elections. This
campaign of lawfare is intended to stifle any and all public debate about the reliability of
the election results, whether such speech is related to Dominion or not.
111. Dominion has filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Sidney Powell. Dominion
has filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani. Dominion has filed a $1.6 billion
lawsuit against Fox News. Dominion has filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against MyPillow and
58
its CEO. Yet Dominion’s annual revenues are only about $90 million. 85 Dominion’s
exaggerated lawsuits are not about any damages it has suffered; they are designed to
intimidate those who exercise their right to free speech about the election.
112. Dominion amplifies the effect of its exaggerated lawsuits with threatening
letters and a publicity campaign.
a. Dominion has sent at least 150 attorney letters, threatening the recipients
with legal action. Some of these letters include copies of Dominion’s legal
papers in its lawsuits. The clear message of these letters is that anyone who
comments publicly about Dominion will be ruined.
b. Dominion sent threatening letters to numerous individuals who signed sworn
affidavits that were used in litigation about the election process. In many
cases, the poll watchers’ affidavits did not include any statement about
Dominion or the election. But Dominion’s campaign is total; it seeks to deter
any public expression questioning the election. Dominion’s clear threats that
it will sue witnesses who testify about election irregularities or fraud does
not threaten just the individual witnesses; it threatens the integrity of the
justice system as a whole. Exhibits 13 and 14 are representative of the
85
“The entire sector generates only about $300 million in revenue annually, according to
Harvard professor Stephen Ansolabehere, who studies elections and formerly directed the
Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project,” and “Dominion, [] has about 30% of the
market.” https://www.propublica.org/article/the-market-for-voting-machines-is-broken-
this-company-has-thrived-in-it.
59
threatening letters Dominion and Clare Locke sent to dozens of these citizen
volunteers performing a public service.
c. In another instance, Dominion sent an intimidating letter to the uncle of an
attorney involved in litigation about the 2020 election. The uncle himself had
no involvement, but for the circumstance of being related to someone
investigating Dominion and the election, Dominion accused him of
disseminating misinformation and making false accusations. Its letter
threatened, “Litigation regarding these issues is imminent.”
60
d. Another individual, an actuary, performed statistical analyses, inquiring
whether the presence of Dominion voting machines affected election
outcomes. He found nonrandom differences in counties that used Dominion
machines. Dominion mailed him a box, pictured below, full of legal papers,
which included lawsuits filed against other citizens along with a threatening
cease and desist letter. As a result of speaking out, the actuary lost business.
113. To further amplify the impact of its legal letters and exaggerated lawsuits,
Dominion has bragged about and widely publicized them, seeking to ensure that everyone
– not just the recipients of its attorney letters – knows they will be punished if they speak
against Dominion, and anyone could be the next victim of a Dominion billion-dollar
lawsuit. For example:
a. In a nationally televised interview, Dominion CEO John Poulos announced,
“Our legal team is looking at frankly everyone, and we’re not ruling
61
anybody out.” He said Dominion’s previous lawsuit was “definitely not the
last lawsuit” it would be filing.
b. Dominion’s website prominently displays its lawsuits, even ahead of its own
products, and statements from its attorneys. The website boasts, “Dominion
has sent preservation request letters to Powell, Giuliani, Fox, OAN, and
Newsmax, as well as more than 150 other individuals and news
organizations. Stay tuned to this page for updates.”
114. The substantial expense of litigation in defamation lawsuits brought by
governmental actors (like Dominion) against their critics has an enormous chilling effect
on speech. Dominion has issued a general threat to all (“Our legal team is looking at frankly
everyone, and we’re not ruling anybody out”) and sharpened that threat by delivering it to
specific individuals (“litigation regarding these issues is imminent”) – sometimes
accompanied by copies of lawsuits Dominion had already filed against others.
62
115. Dominion’s use of lawfare tears at the fabric of our constitutional order. If
successful, the scheme will cripple our system’s ability to ferret out and stop electoral
manipulation, as well as cut a wide hole in the First Amendment.
116. Dominion aggressively pushed a narrative that there should be no concern
regarding the integrity of the election. Dominion took equally aggressive action to demand
no criticism. In response to Lindell’s exercise of his First Amendment free speech rights,
Dominion launched its lawfare campaign against both Lindell and his company. Exhibits
15 through 17 are the increasingly aggressive “cease and desist” letters sent by Dominion’s
lawyers at Clare Locke to Lindell, seeking to silence Lindell’s criticism and cherry-pick
support for Dominion’s self-interested denial of any wrongdoing. Dominion’s and
Smartmatic’s scheme is wrongful because their purpose is to punish and deter important
constitutionally-protected activity–free expression about a matter of public concern.
117. Dominion’s co-conspirator in this campaign to suppress free speech and
extort silence from dissenters is another election-runner and state actor, Smartmatic. On
or about February 4, 2021, Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit in federal court in New
York City against Fox News; journalists Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro;
and former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell. The defendants’ alleged
wrongdoing? Speaking their mind publicly, attempting to report on growing questions
about the role of voting machines in 2020 election irregularities, and utilizing the legal
process to expose such irregularities and prevent certification of any election results that
may have resulted from a tainted process. But Smartmatic’s true motive is as obvious as
Dominion’s: to enforce the orthodoxy of Democrats, the mainstream media, and Big Tech
63
and quash any and all suggestions that President Joe Biden might not have been the victor
in an election conducted fairly and untainted by fraud. And Smartmatic’s weapon of
choice? The litigation process—an expensive, slow, notoriously inefficient arena in which
only a very few can afford to wage battle on the scale Smartmatic and Dominion attempt
to impose on those who question the integrity of their systems. Under the auspices of
“defending election integrity”—a lofty goal far better served by fixing their notoriously
and demonstrably insecure voting machines than by waging lawsuit warfare on private
citizens—Smartmatic and Dominion have embarked on a concerted, collective enterprise
to extort silence from their dissenters or bring financial ruin on any and all who persist in
speaking their minds. 86
118. Lindell is a victim of this conspiracy and enterprise by Dominion and
Smartmatic to attempt to silence him by abusing the litigation process and, as state actors,
punish him for his support and advocacy of certain political views or candidates.
Specifically, he has suffered reputational harm from being called the perpetrator of the
“Big Lie”—a Hitler-coined term 87—and publicly vilified as a liar, conspiracy theorist, and
purveyor of “basless” or “false” information regarding the 2020 election. Moreover,
Lindell has received numerous threats against his person and even his life since speaking
out about evidence of election fraud. Obviously, he has suffered individually as a result of
the damage done to his business, MyPillow, as a result of the Dominion- and Smartmatic-
86
https://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-dominion-smartmatic-suing-defamation-
election-conspiracy-theories-2021-2
87
ADOLF HITLER, MEIN KAMPF vol. I, ch. X (James Murphy trans., Hurst and Blackett Ltd. 1939)
(1925) available at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt.
64
led “cancel culture” aimed at Lindell. And the Dominion lawfare campaign against Lindell
has interfered with plans to take Lindell’s on-line store, MyStore, public in an initial public
offering. Moreover, he has incurred and is incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars to
defend himself against Dominion’s $1.3 billion lawsuit simply because Dominion wants
to use the litigation process to silence him—even as it tolerated a decade or more of
criticism of its machines’ security from those on the political left. Lindell is entitled to
recover his actual and special damages from Dominion and Smartmatic for their collective
role in their conspiracy and enterprise to harm him—damages which presently are
estimated to exceed $2 billion.
119. In the context of election integrity—so crucial to the functioning and survival
of a republican form of government—no litigant should be able to weaponize the courts
and the litigation process while hiding behind legal doctrines originally intended and
developed to protect constitutional rights, such as the right to petition the government, and
the right to a full and fair opportunity to be heard in a court of law. No doubt, the Dominion
Defendants and the Smartmatic Defendants will attempt to hide behind such doctrines (like
the Noerr-Pennnington doctrine or the “absolute privilege” protecting statements made in
the course of judicial proceedings) to deprive Lindell and other litigants of their sacrosanct
right of freedom of speech. Through their joint enterprise to suppress political dissent, the
Dominion Defendants and the Smartmatic Defendants have placed in tension the right to
petition the government against the right to free speech. In doing so, one set of litigants
(the Dominion and Smartmatic Defendants) have abused the right to petition the
government in an effort to suppress Mike Lindell’s and others’ lawful and proper exercise
65
of their freedom of speech. Plaintiff Lindell has been harmed as a result and brings this
suit to recover for that harm and bring an end once and for all to the defendants’ reign of
litigation terror and conspiracy to deprive Lindell and others of their constitutionally
protected freedom of political expression.
120. In short, Plaintiff Lindell brings this lawsuit to put an end to Dominion’s and
Smartmatics’ campaign of “lawfare” against those who criticize their electronic voting
machines, or who question their role in the indisputably suspect conduct of the 2020
President Election. Lindell’s claims rise above any protections the defendants may assert
to wage their lawfare campaign, because those protections do not and should not immunize
state actors from weaponizing the judicial system and the litigation process to silence
dissent, unpopular beliefs, or facts inconveniently out-of-line with mainstream groupthink.
VI. CAUSES OF ACTION
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else
follows.”
121. The facts alleged above and to be proven at trial demonstrate that Plaintiff is
entitled to recover damages and other relief against the various defendants in this case on
one or more theories and causes of action as set out below.
COUNT ONE: ABUSE OF PROCESS

(as to the Dominion Defendants)
122. Plaintiff incorporates the foregoing paragraphs as if fully set forth verbatim
below.
66
123. The facts set forth herein and to be proven at trial demonstrate that Plaintiff
is entitled to recovery against the Dominion Defendants, jointly and severally, for the
common law tort of abuse of process.
124. Under Minnesota law, the elements of a tort cause of action for abuse of
process are (a) the existence of an ulterior purpose, and (b) the act of using the process to
accomplish a result not within the scope of the proceeding in which it was issued, whether
such result might otherwise be lawfully obtained or not. See Young v. Klass, 776 F.Supp.2d
916, 924 (D. Minn. 2011), quoting Hoppe v. Klapperich, 224 Minn. 224, 28 N.W.2d 780,
786 (1947). Abuse of process does not require the plaintiff to prove either favorable
termination of the underlying litigation or malice on the part of the defendant.
125. The facts alleged above and to be proven at trial will establish each of these
elements. As detailed above, the Dominion Defendants brought suit against Lindell as part
of a widespread “lawfare” campaign designed not to compensate for any harm to Dominion
caused by the public statements by Lindell and others, but to weaponize the judicial system
in order to quash political dissent and silence those who would have the citizens of the
United States (and the world, for that matter) know the truth about the grave flaws in
Dominion’s voting machines (as well as the voting machines of others). To that end, the
Dominion Defendants have willfully plead gross mischaracterizations and outright lies
about their voting machines, about the public statements Lindell has made about them, and
about Lindell personally. In addition, the Dominion Defendants have alleged a quantum
of damages—$1.3 billion—that not only bears no conceivable connection to any possible
harm suffered from the public exposé of their flawed machines, but also is many multiples
67
of the Dominion Defendants’ revenues from their voting machines that were the subject of
Lindell’s public statements. Such allegations, having no basis in fact, are instead meant
only to intimidate and silence. For these and other reasons, the Dominion Defendants’
judicial claims against Lindell are devoid of factual support and were instead made for the
primary purpose of intimidating Lindell into silence and a public retraction of his previous
public statements.
126. As a result of the Dominion Defendants’ abuse of the judicial process,
Plaintiff has suffered damages to his business interests and his reputation, has suffered
threats to his personal safety and life, and has incurred and continues to incur costs to
defend the abusive litigation those defendants have brought against him, for which he is
entitled to recovery against those defendants, jointly and severally, and for which he now
brings this suit.
COUNT TWO: DEFAMATION

(as to the Dominion Defendants)
below.
128. Pleading further and in the alternative, the facts set forth herein and to be
proven at trial demonstrate that Plaintiff is entitled to recovery against the Dominion
Defendants, jointly and severally, for the common law tort of defamation.
129. Under Minnesota law, a statement is actionable in defamation if it is: (1)
false; (2) was communicated to a third party; and (3) tended to harm the plaintiff's
reputation or to lower that person in the estimation of the community. Church v. City of
68
St. Michael, 205 F.Supp.3d 1014, 1043 (D. Minn. 2016). Defamation that affects a plaintiff
in its “business, trade, profession, office or calling” is defamation per se and is “actionable
without any proof of actual damages.” Id. at 1045 n.19.
130. The Dominion Defendants have defamed Plaintiff Lindell per se by calling
him a “liar” and a purveyor of “the Big Lie” in the D.C. Lawsuit. In fact, everything Lindell
has publicly stated about the vulnerability of voting machines to cyberattacks and hacking
(including the Dominion Defendants’ voting machines) is substantively true, and the
Dominion Defendants know it.
131. Labeling a private citizen a “liar” or purveyor of lies is defamation per se,
and therefore Lindell is entitled to monetary relief even in the absence of proof of economic
loss or special damages. To the extent such proof is required, Plaintiff will show that the
Dominion Defendants’ published lies about him have caused him economic losses and
special damages, for which he is entitled to recovery against those defendants, jointly and
severally, and for which he now brings this suit.
COUNT THREE: VIOLATIONS OF THE RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND

CORRUPT ORGANIZATION ACT, 18 U.S.C. § 1962
(as to Dominion Defendants and Smartmatic Defendants)
below.
proven at trial demonstrate that Plaintiff is entitled to recovery under 18 U.S.C. § 1964
69
against the Dominion Defendants and the Smartmatic Defendants, jointly and severally,
for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1962.
134. To establish a civil RICO claim, the plaintiff must show that the defendant
engaged in (1) conduct (2) of an enterprise (3) through a pattern (4) of racketeering activity,
and that he (5) sustained an injury to business or property (6) that was caused by the RICO
violation.
135. An “enterprise” includes any individual, partnership, corporation,
association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in
fact although not a legal entity. An “association-in-fact” enterprise does not require a
formal structure such as a hierarchical chain-of-command, fixed roles for members, a
name, regular meetings, or established rules and regulations. To establish an enterprise,
the plaintiff must show (1) a common purpose, (2) relationships among those associated
with the enterprise, and (3) longevity sufficient to permit those associates to pursue the
enterprise’s purpose.
136. The facts alleged above and to be proven at trial demonstrate that the
Dominion Defendants and the Smartmatic Defendants, with the assistance and
participation of non-party co-conspirator Clare Locke, LLP, constituted an association-in-
fact enterprise (“the Dominion/Smartmatic Enterprise”) having the common purpose of
suppressing dissent to the use of electronic voting machines and suppressing demands for
investigations into the possible use of electronic voting machines to artificially manipulate
voting, vote tabulations, and election results reporting in the 2020 Presidential Election. A
relationship exists between the Dominion Defendants and the Smartmatic Defendants in
70
that the Dominion Defendants’ voting machines utilize Smartmatic software (or software
previously designed, created, modified, and sold by Smartmatic), and the Dominion
Defendants and Smartmatic Defendants share common employees or contractors, co-
working space, and historical and functional connections to Sequoia and other legacy
voting systems. This relationship has existed for over ten years and continues to this day.
137. The facts alleged above and to be proven at trial demonstrate that the
Dominion/Smartmatic Enterprise was at all relevant times engaged in the production,
distribution, or acquisition of goods or services in interstate commerce. Specifically, the
Dominion Defendants’ principal place of business is in Colorado, but Dominion provides
voting machines to twenty-eight different states, and has issued written threats to those
speaking out against electronic voting machines and their vulnerability to vote
manipulation in numerous states beyond the borders of the State of Colorado, and has filed
suit against Plaintiff Lindell in the District of Columbia as part of the “lawfare” campaign
of the Dominion/Smartmatic Enterprise. Likewise, Smartmatic has its principal place of
business in Florida, but has likewise sold its goods and services—which it too seeks to
protect through the joint “lawfare” campaign as part of the Dominion/Smartmatic
Enterprise—to numerous jurisdictions outside of Florida and throughout the United States.
138. The facts alleged above and to be proven at trial further demonstrate that the
Dominion/Smartmatic Enterprise has engaged in numerous related acts of racketeering
activity that amount to or pose a threat of continued criminal activity. Specifically, the
Dominion/Smartmatic Enterprise has issued—according to Dominion’s own boasting on
its website—over 150 “cease and desist” letters threatening companies and individuals
71
(including family members of those who have spoken publicly against the voting machines,
who have not themselves spoken publicly about them). Those letters threaten the recipients
with ruinous litigation unless the recipients recant their previous statements and cease
further public expression regarding questions or evidence of fraudulent manipulation of
voting machines or their use in tampering with and altering the outcome of the 2020
Presidential Election in certain jurisdictions. These threats constitute extortion for
purposes of establishing the requisite “predicate acts” for a civil RICO claim. These threats
constitute a “pattern” for purposes of a civil RICO claim because the Dominion/Smartmatic
Enterprise has made them continuously since shortly after the 2020 Presidential Election,
and it continues to issue new extortionate threats to additional recipients to this day, with
no apparent end in sight to the pattern of racketeering activity.
139. Plaintiff has suffered actual injury as a result of the Dominion/Smartmatic
Enterprise’s actions in furtherance of its racketeering conspiracy and activities, for which
he is entitled to recovery against those defendants, jointly and severally, together with
treble damages as allowed by law, as well as attorney’s fees, and for which he now brings
this suit.
COUNT FOUR: VIOLATIONS OF THE “SUPPORT AND ADVOCACY”

CLAUSE OF 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3)
(as to Dominion Defendants and Smartmatic Defendants)
below.
72
proven at trial demonstrate that Plaintiff is entitled to recovery under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3)
against the Dominion Defendants and Smartmatic Defendants, jointly and severally, for
violation of Plaintiff’s rights under the Support and Advocacy clause of that statute.
142. The “Support and Advocacy” clause of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) provides as
follows:
[I]f two or more persons conspire to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat,

any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote, from giving his support or
advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor or the election of any lawfully
qualified person as an elector for President or Vice President …; or to injure
any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy; …
if any one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act
in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in
his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or
privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived
shall have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury
or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.
Id.
143. A cause of action under the Support and Advocacy clause therefore requires
a showing of the following elements: (1) two or more persons; (2) who conspire to either
(a) prevent by force, intimidation, or threat a citizen lawfully entitled to vote from giving
support or advocacy in a legal manner toward or in favor of the election of a lawfully
qualified elector for President or Vice President, or (b) injure any citizen in person or
property on account of her support or advocacy toward or in favor of the election of a
lawfully qualified elector for President or Vice President; (3) one or more acts in
furtherance of the object of such conspiracy; (4) whereby plaintiff suffers either (a) injury
in her person or property, or (b) deprivation of having and exercising any right or privilege
73
of a citizen of the United States. Id.; see also, Note, “The Support and Advocacy Clause
of § 1985(3), HARVARD LAW REVIEW 133:1382, 1384-86 (2020).
144. The facts set out above and to be proven at trial demonstrate that the
Dominion Defendants and the Smartmatic Defendants, with the assistance and
participation of non-party co-conspirator Clare Locke, LLP, had a meeting of the minds to
agree on the common purpose of silencing dissent and opposition to the use of electronic
voting machines in the 2020 Presidential Election and the exposure of such machines’
vulnerability to cyber attacks and election tampering. The real purpose of the conspiracy
was to silence those like Lindell who supported President Donald J. Trump and advocated
for investigations into voting machine fraud (and other types of election fraud) in an effort
to determine the legitimate votes cast for each Presidential candidate in each of the key
swing states, in light of the numerically improbable overnight lead change from Trump to
Biden in those states in the wee hours of November 4, 2020. The Dominion Defendants
and the Smartmatic Defendants determined to carry out this conspiracy through a
coordinated campaign of lawfare—weaponizing the court system and litigation process to
threaten, intimidate, and force private citizens like Lindell into silence and retract their
public statements regarding opposition to the use of electronic voting machines and their
vulnerabilities, and the significant potential that such vulnerabilities were exploited in
certain jurisdictions to artificially cost President Trump the election in key swing states.
To that end, the Dominion Defendants first threatened Lindell with ruinous litigation, then
filed an abusive, sham defamation lawsuit against Lindell seeking a $1.3 billion recovery
with no basis in fact or law. The Dominion Defendants’ lawsuit has injured Lindell in his
74
person (reputationally and physically due to threats on his life) and his property (through
business losses and the cost of defending against the sham litigation) and has further
deprived Lindell of having and exercising his rights as a United States citizen to freedoms
of speech and of expression.
145. The Dominion and Smartmatic Defendants’ violation of the Support and
Advocacy clause of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) has caused Plaintiff Lindell actual damages, for
which he is entitled to recovery against those defendants, jointly and severally, and for
which he now brings this suit.
146. Separately, a conspiracy for purposes of this claim is shown by the actions
of the Dominion Defendants and their lawyers at Clare Locke, LLP who together conspired
to send out over 150 baseless cease and desist letters—including to Lindell—with the
express purpose of threatening and intimidating Lindell and others who brought forth
evidence of election fraud in the November 2020 general election as part of their support
and advocacy for President Trump.
COUNT FIVE: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 DEPRIVATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS BY

ACTIONS UNDER COLOR OF STATE LAW
(as to Dominion Defendants)
below.
proven at trial demonstrate that Plaintiff is entitled to recovery under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
75
against the Dominion Defendants, jointly and severally, for violation of Plaintiff’s rights
under the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution and under the Due
Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
149. The Dominion Defendants were at all relevant times acting under color of
state law in connection with the 2020 Presidential Election. Specifically, a private party is
acting under color of state law when the state has delegated to that private party a function
traditionally exclusively reserved to the State. Administering elections of public officials
is one such function, and the facts alleged above and to be proven at trial will demonstrate
that the Dominion Defendants were administering elections in numerous jurisdictions
throughout and across the United States, the results of whose local 2020 presidential voting
significantly and materially impacted the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election
nationally.
150. To establish a Section 1983 claim, a plaintiff must show that (1) he has
Article III standing to bring the claim, (2) a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the
United States was violated, and (3) the alleged violation was committed by a person acting
under the color of state law. Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 535 (1981), overruled in part
on other grounds by Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 330–31 (1986).
151. To establish a violation of the Equal Protection Clause under 42 U.S.C. §
1983, the plaintiff must show state action that inherently favors or disfavors a particular
group of voters. The facts alleged above and to be proven at trial will demonstrate that the
Dominion Defendants acted under color of state law to engage in invidious discrimination
or intentional misconduct to the detriment of Lindell and others of his same class of voter.
76
Specifically, the Dominion Defendants, acting under color of state law as a private
corporation authorized and employed by various states to perform the essential state
function of administering and conducting the 2020 Presidential Election, have attempted
through the use of the courts and the litigation process to suppress Lindell’s freedom of
speech and his right to disseminate information and data regarding the role of Dominion
voting machines in election fraud and election tampering. In doing so, Dominion
disfavored the conservative political viewpoint of Plaintiff Lindell over those of left-
leaning or Democrat-supporting individuals who also publicized the role of Dominion
voting machines in election fraud and election tampering. A state actor like the Dominion
Defendants cannot engage in viewpoint-based discrimination in attempting to suppress a
private citizen’s exercise of its First Amendment right to free speech, and in doing so, the
Dominion Defendants unlawfully deprived Plaintiff Lindell of a legally protected interest
in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
152. To establish a substantive due process violation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the
plaintiff must demonstrate that a fundamental right was violated and that the conduct
shocks the conscience. Freedom of speech—and in particular, freedom of political
speech—is, indisputably, a right of the most fundamental significance under our
constitutional structure. The facts alleged above and to be proven at trial will demonstrate
that the Dominion Defendants acted under color of state law to engage in conduct that
shocks the conscious because it was so disproportionate to the need presented, and so
inspired by malice or sadism rather than a merely careless or unwise excess of zeal, that it
amounted to brutal and inhumane abuse of official power literally shocking to the
77
conscience. Specifically, the Dominion Defendants, acting under color of state law,
misused the courts and the litigation process to suppress Lindell’s freedom of speech and
to deprive him of a substantive right under the First Amendment. Such wrongdoing
violates 42 U.S.C. §1983 and has caused Plaintiff Lindell harm, for which he now brings
this suit.
COUNT SIX: CIVIL CONSPIRACY

(as to All Defendants)
below.
proven at trial demonstrate that Plaintiff is entitled to recovery for common law civil
conspiracy against all Defendants, jointly and severally, for their collusion and agreement
to the common objective or course of action, acting under color of state law, to deprive
Plaintiff Lindell of his constitutional rights under the First Amendment, and their overt acts
in connection with that common purpose.
155. To establish a civil conspiracy, plaintiffs must show five elements: (1) two
or more persons; (2) an object to be accomplished; (3) a meeting of the minds on the object
or course of action to be taken; (4) the commission of one or more unlawful overt acts; and
(5) damages as the proximate result of the conspiracy. See ECTG Ltd., Trustwater, Ltd. v.
O'Shaughnessy, No. CIV. 14-960 DSD/JJK, 2014 WL 6684982, at *4 (D. Minn. Nov. 25,
2014), citing In re TMJ Implants Prods. Liab. Litig., 113 F.3d 1484, 1498 (8th Cir.1997).
78
156. The facts set out above and to be proven at trial will establish that Defendants
collectively, with the assistance and participation of non-party co-conspirator Clare Locke,
LLP, had a meeting of the minds on the object or course of action of depriving Plaintiff of
his constitutional rights under the First Amendment, while acting under color of state law.
The facts will further establish that Defendants committed one or more wrongful overt acts,
including but not limited to the following, in furtherance of this common objective or
course of action:
a. Engaging in a campaign of abuse of process to bring suit against Plaintiff not
for the purpose of vindicating any legitimate right or grievance but for the
sole purposes of intimidating Lindell into silencing his political speech and
opposition to Defendants’ point of view.
b. Defaming Plaintiff by publishing false and defamatory statements, including
but not limited to calling him a “liar” and the purveyor of “the Big Lie,” when
Defendants were aware that Plaintiff’s statements were substantively true.
c. Attempting to extort Plaintiff by first threatening him with ruinous litigation,
then actually bringing such litigation in a sham or frivolous manner, if he
refused to silence his views on the reliability of voting machines and their
use to alter election outcomes in certain jurisdictions, or to retract his prior
statements to that effect.
d. Violating Plaintiff’s rights under the “Support and Advocacy” clause of 42
U.S.C. § 1985(3) by attempting first to intimidate him into silencing his
political speech, then punishing him for continuing to exercise his right to
79
speak, regarding the vulnerability of voting machines to, and their use in,
election fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election.
e. As a state actor, and acting under color of state law, depriving Plaintiff of his
rights of equal protection and due process by bringing sham and potentially
ruinous litigation against Plaintiff purely out of discrimination against his
political viewpoint, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
The facts will further establish that Plaintiff has suffered actual damages as a proximate
cause of Defendants’ agreement and wrongful overt acts.
VII. DAMAGES AND OTHER RELIEF
below.
158. The facts set out above and to be proven at trial will demonstrate that Plaintiff
is entitled to recover against Defendants, jointly and severally, the following:
a. Actual and special damages as allowed by law, in an amount to be proven at
trial, including but not limited to the following:
a. Special damages in the form of attorneys fees and expenses incurred
in defending against Dominion’s lawsuit;
b. Damages for defamation per se for Dominion’s public attacks on his
honesty and integrity; and,
c. Damages to be determined by the trier of fact suffered as a result of
the deprivation of his rights under the First Amendment to the U.S.
80
Constitution and under the “support and advocacy” clause of 42
U.S.C. § 1985(3); together with,
b. Three times actual damages for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1862;
c. Punitive damages as allowed by law, in an amount to be determined by the
trier of fact;
d. Reasonable and necessary attorney’s fees, as allowed by law; and,
e. Costs of suit.
VIII. CONDITIONS PRECEDENT
159. All conditions precedent to Plaintiff bringing and maintaining this action
have been satisfied or waived.
IX. JURY DEMAND
160. Plaintiff respectfully requests trial by jury on all issues so triable.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff asks that Defendants be cited to answer and appear herein
and that, after trial or other hearing on the merits, Plaintiff have and recover against the
Defendants, jointly and severally, the relief requested herein, together with all writs and
processes necessary to the enforcement of same, and all other relief to which he may show
himself justly entitled.
81
Respectully submitted,
BARNES & THORNBURG LLP
/s/ Alec J. Beck

Minnesota State Bar No. 201133
225 S. Sixth Street, Suite 2800
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402
(612) 367-8709 (Telephone)
(612) 333-6798 (Facsimile)
alec.beck@btlaw.com
Douglas A. Daniels (pro hac vice pending)

Texas State Bar No. 00793579
Heath A. Novosad (pro hac vice pending)
Texas State Bar No. 24037199
DANIELS & TREDENNICK, PLLC
6363 Woodway Drive, Suite 700
Houston, Texas 77057
(713) 917-0024 (Telephone)
(713) 917-0026 (Facsimile)
doug.daniels@dtlawyers.com (E-mail)
Attorneys for Plaintiff
82

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CASE 0:21-cv-01332 Doc.

1 Filed 06/03/21 Page 1 of 82

United States District Court

US DOMINION, INC., COMPLAINT

Defendants. Jury Trial Demanded

2. Fact: Electronic voting machines and software can be hacked through a

3. Fact: It is indisputable that the electronic voting machines and software

manufactured and sold by Dominion 1 and Smartmatic 2 are vulnerable to cyberattacks

to be tallied for the opposing candidate.

election equipment and run elections for government agencies.

of electronic voting machines by China and other nation-state actors—including twenty

race in the 2020 General Election.

8. Fact: In response to Mike Lindell’s public statements about the evidence he

machines in the 2020 General Election.

to election fraud by suing or threatening to sue over 150 private individuals or

organizations, including dozens of citizen volunteer poll watchers, with baseless

threatened these witnesses—citizen volunteers performing a public service—with ruinous

the 2020 General Election.

of Supervisors and various Democrat-affiliated groups have spent months attempting to

passwords to the Dominion voting machines—meaning Dominion employees had control

passwords to the voting machines.

court order or by direction of state legislatures or attorneys general in Arizona, Georgia,

Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire.

14. Conclusion: Dominion, Smartmatic, and others are desperate to cover up

speech and ideas they deem unacceptable to their narrative.

16. Plaintiff Michael J. Lindell (“Plaintiff” or “Lindell”) is an individual citizen

of the State of Minnesota.

Lawsuit Warfare = Lawsuit + Warefare = Lawfare. See

17. Defendant US Dominion, Inc. is a corporation organized and existing under

210, Denver, Colorado 80202.

18. Defendant Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. is a corporation organized and

Brooklyn Center, Minnesota 55430.

19. Defendant Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a corporation organized

the terms of the Hague Convention.

20. Defendant Smartmatic USA Corp. is a corporation organized and existing

D, Boca Raton, Florida 33487.

21. Defendant Smartmatic International Holding B.V. is a corporation organized

the Hauge Convention.

22. Defendant SGO Corporation Limited is a corporation organized and existing

the Hague Concention.

III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), and 18 U.S.C § 1964.

citizens or subjects of a foreign state. Specifically, Lindell is a citizen of Minnesota, while

are subject to personal jurisdiction in this District, as set out above.

IV. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

specific context of political speech about something as vital to a republican form of

republic depends on fighting back against censorship of information concerning the

right to speak freely on matters of the utmost public concern.

A. The Rise of the Machines

28. Prior to 2002, states conducted their elections overwhelmingly using

paper-based systems to electronic, computer-based systems.

systems are provided by a small number of private companies having little to no

beyond what individual states may choose to certify. 7

in 28 states, is wholly owned by Scytl, a multi-national company headquartered in

etc.) to an inherently vulnerable, internet-exposed electronic voting machine-based system.

tampering, and electronic voting fraud.

34. As previously noted, Dominion and Smartmatic manufacture, distribute, and

performance of the machines and elections.