Dominion Voting Systems Sold to GOP Election Official, But Defamation Lawsuits Against Giuliani, Lindell Allies Keep Rolling

Dominion Voting Systems, the company at the center of years of false 2020 election-rigging claims, has new ownership. Liberty Vote, a company led by former St. Louis election official Scott Leiendecker, acquired Dominion in a deal announced last week, according to Business Insider and Votebeat's reporting for Spotlight PA.

Leiendecker called it "a bold and historic move to transform and improve election integrity in America." That language echoes years of complaints from Donald Trump and his allies about voting machine security and calls for hand-marked paper ballots. Leiendecker previously ran Knowink, a widely used electronic pollbook vendor, and says he is Liberty Vote's sole owner.

Despite the rhetoric, the transition looks more like a rebranding than an overhaul, at least so far. Matt Crane, director of the Colorado Clerks Association, organized a call between Leiendecker and state election officials after the announcement rattled people who rely on Dominion equipment. Jurisdictions in 27 states use some Dominion technology, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia, according to Verified Voting.

"Once we took a step back and took a deep breath, we realized not much was changing," Crane said. He added that clerks were initially "very upset" but came away cautiously optimistic after the call. Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State's office, said his office learned of the sale only a few hours before it went public.

A Liberty Vote official told Votebeat there was "an intensive effort to inform existing customers as quickly as possible" and that "there are no plans for any changes at this time" regarding staffing or contracts. Existing Dominion support staff will keep servicing accounts under the Liberty Vote name.

The legal cleanup before the sale

Before selling, Dominion quietly closed out several of the massive defamation lawsuits it filed after 2020. In late September, it settled with Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, each of whom Dominion had sued for $1.3 billion. Earlier this month it also settled its $1.6 billion case against One America News. None of those three settlements had disclosed terms, a sharp contrast to Dominion's blockbuster 2023 settlement with Fox News.

That Fox case remains the marquee example of what Dominion's evidence could do. Fox paid $787.5 million to settle in April 2023, hours after a jury had already been sworn in and just before opening statements, according to CNN's coverage from that day. Fox's own statement afterward acknowledged "the Court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false" — a reference to Judge Eric Davis's March 31, 2023 pretrial ruling that all 20 statements at issue in the suit were false. Fox never had to concede actual malice in open court because the case settled before trial.

Dominion also settled with Newsmax for $67 million earlier this year, following the same pattern of resolving cases against media outlets before litigation reached a jury.

What's still pending

Two defendants have not settled. Mike Lindell, the My Pillow CEO who has spent tens of millions of dollars fighting election technology companies in court, remains a defendant, and Dominion's new ownership hasn't offered to end that fight, according to Business Insider. "The computers need to go, or we lose our country," Lindell told the outlet. "They all need to be melted down and turned into prison bars."

Lindell has already lost related cases. A Colorado jury found in July that he defamed former Dominion executive Eric Coomer, and a Minnesota judge separately ruled he defamed Smartmatic, a rival voting technology firm also targeted by 2020 conspiracy claims.

Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO, is also still being sued by Dominion. His attorney, Stephanie Lambert, told Business Insider he is "looking forward to a trial." Rich Chrismer, a spokesperson for Liberty Vote, did not respond to questions about the settlements or the remaining lawsuits.

As the Guardian reported after the Fox settlement, Dominion's legal team signaled from the start it wasn't finished. Stephen Shackelford, a lawyer for Dominion, said outside the courthouse in 2023: "Money is accountability and we got that today from Fox, but we're not done yet. We've got some other people who have some accountability coming towards them." Defamation attorney Anthony Glassman cautioned at the time that Dominion's overwhelming internal evidence against Fox executives might not exist to the same degree against other defendants, making those cases less of a sure thing.

The unresolved question now is what happens to that litigation strategy under new ownership. Liberty Vote has said nothing publicly about whether it intends to pursue, settle, or drop the Lindell and Byrne cases. Meanwhile, election officials in states like Colorado and Georgia are watching to see whether Leiendecker's promise of no immediate changes to contracts and staffing holds up once the acquisition dust settles.