How did state election audits address claims of Dominion machine tampering in 2020-2022?
Executive summary
State and county audits and recounts between 2020 and 2022 largely found no evidence that Dominion Voting Systems machines were used to alter vote totals, with hand counts and independent reviews affirming tabulator accuracy in key jurisdictions and federal cybersecurity authorities finding no signs of system compromise [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, a wave of partisan, private, and sometimes legally contested audits—especially in Arizona and Pennsylvania—kept allegations alive, produced contested findings in isolated local reviews, and strained public confidence even where official checks refuted tampering [4] [5] [6].
1. Official audits and recounts largely corroborated counts and dismissed tampering claims
State-certified audits, hand recounts and forensic reviews in battleground areas repeatedly verified that Dominion tabulators accurately recorded paper ballots: Georgia’s audits and recounts affirmed no vote-switching and that tabulators matched hand counts, and Antrim County’s hand count in Michigan found only tiny expected variances attributable to human or reporting error rather than machine manipulation [1] [2] [7]. Federal actors and cybersecurity authorities likewise reported no evidence that voting systems deleted, changed, or lost votes in the 2020 or 2022 elections, with CISA stating it “saw no evidence” any voting systems were compromised [3] [8]. Dominion and numerous local election officials pointed to thousands of audits and recounts that, by their account, validated the integrity of certified systems [9] [8].
2. Partisan and private audits challenged official findings but rarely produced corroborated proof
Following the 2020 election, Republican-led and private audits—most prominently the Maricopa County review in Arizona and various GOP-driven probes in Pennsylvania and elsewhere—were framed as attempts to test machine integrity but often relied on nonstandard procedures and outside firms with partisan ties; those efforts failed to overturn certified results and, in many cases, produced no independently verifiable evidence of systemic Dominion tampering [4] [5] [10]. Where private auditors claimed anomalies, state officials, courts, or accredited testing labs often pushed back, pointing to methodological flaws or lack of accreditation among the firms conducting the work [4] [5].
3. Legal and institutional checks constrained access to machines and shaped outcomes
Courts and state election authorities limited or regulated third-party inspections of voting equipment, reflecting concerns about chain-of-custody, certification, and the financial burden of replacing decertified machines; the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, for example, temporarily blocked a partisan inspection of Fulton County’s Dominion machines amid litigation over who could lawfully examine the equipment [5]. Meanwhile, official testing labs and certified procedures were the standard for forensic audits when counties allowed them, and those accredited reviews typically found no evidence of external network access or malicious code that would enable vote switching [10] [11].
4. Isolated local reports and contested claims added fuel to public doubt but lacked corroboration
Some county-level presentations and fringe outlets circulated dramatic claims—such as assertions about deleted ballot images or self-filling “features” in machines in New Mexico—but these reports often came from nonpeer-reviewed local audits or partisan blogs and were not substantiated by wider state or federal reviews; authoritative debunking and official audits either explained anomalies as human error or left such claims unverified [6] [2]. Dominion and independent fact-checkers consistently pushed back against high-profile conspiracy narratives, and Dominion pursued legal remedies to counter defamatory reporting [9] [12].
5. Net effect: audits reinforced technical accuracy but political consequences persisted
Technically, the body of state and accredited audits from 2020–2022 reinforced that paper-based systems and certified tabulators counted ballots as intended and that there was no systemic evidence of Dominion-driven tampering [9] [3] [7]. Politically, however, the mix of partisan probes, public theatrics, and contested private reports prolonged suspicion, prompting debates over auditing standards, who may conduct them, and how to preserve both security and public trust going forward—questions that official findings alone did not settle [4] [5] [10].