What specific fraud claims were made against Dominion Voting Systems in 2020?
Executive summary
The dominant fraud claims in 2020 accused Dominion Voting Systems of using its machines and software to switch votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, to delete large numbers of Trump votes, and to be tied into broader conspiracies about foreign or partisan control of vote-counting technology; these allegations were repeatedly amplified by Trump allies and certain media figures [1] [2]. Multiple audits, officials and later court rulings found no evidence supporting those claims and Dominion pursued defamation suits that culminated in a large settlement with Fox News [3] [4].
1. The core technical allegation: vote-flipping and “switching” votes
The clearest and most repeated charge was that Dominion tabulators or software “flipped” or “switched” thousands—or in some versions millions—of votes away from Trump to Biden during tabulation, effectively altering the outcome of key states [5] [1]. Variants of this allegation claimed either real-time switching during election night or post-election software processes that automatically reassigned votes, and these claims were often presented without underlying logs, reproducible tests, or credible chain-of-custody evidence in public forums [6].
2. The “deleted votes” and large-scale loss narrative
Another frequent claim was that Dominion systems had “deleted” millions of votes cast for Trump—language used widely in social media and by some public figures to convey catastrophic loss of data rather than discrete tabulation errors [5] [7]. That framing transformed routine, remediable errors or local procedural issues in some precincts into an allegation of systemic, nationwide erasure of ballots in favor of Biden [2].
3. Conspiracy extensions: foreign control, partisan ownership, and related vendors
Beyond mechanics, accusers expanded to conspiratorial assertions tying Dominion to purported foreign actors, Democratic figures, or other companies (for example, conflations with Smartmatic or claims about Clinton-linked ownership) as proof of motive or centralized fraud; these linkage claims surfaced on social platforms and were repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers [2]. Some complaints also alleged that software certification or testing had been falsified or that employees had been instructed to alter hardware/software to obtain certification—claims that circulated in petitions or local government documents but were not substantiated publicly in forensic audits cited here [8].
4. Official reviews, academic studies, and the absence of corroborating evidence
State and federal election officials, coordinated cybersecurity statements, and peer-reviewed analyses found no credible evidence that Dominion machines deleted, switched, or otherwise miscounted votes at a scale that would change the 2020 result; academic work focused on battleground states and Wisconsin specifically concluded the allegations of machine-driven vote manipulation were unsupported [7] [3]. Journalistic reviews and audits noted isolated, fixable errors in some local jurisdictions but not the systemic malfeasance alleged by critics [6].
5. Media amplification, legal consequences, and how the narrative hardened
Prominent TV hosts, Trump lawyers (notably Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell), and right-leaning outlets broadcast dramatic versions of these claims between November 2020 and January 2021; those broadcasts later became the core of Dominion’s defamation litigation targeting outlets that promoted the allegations [9] [10]. Dominion sued for reputational and financial harm; after discovery revealed internal communications questioning the veracity of the claims, Fox News and Dominion settled for $787.5 million—an outcome media coverage framed as legal recognition of the falsity of the aired allegations [4] [10].
6. What remains contested and the limits of available reporting
Public reporting and court documents make clear which specific claims were widely advanced—vote switching, deletion, foreign/partisan control, and certification fraud—but they also show that the purported forensic evidence presented publicly was thin or absent and that official audits failed to corroborate the allegations [2] [3]. The sources assembled do not exhaust every rumor variant circulated online; reporting is limited to what was aired, litigated, or formally investigated, and cannot catalog every fringe claim that appeared on social media in 2020 [2].