Federal Judge Tosses Right-Wing Pennsylvania County’s Lawsuit Over Dominion Voting Machines
For a second time, a federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from Fulton County, Pennsylvania’s board of elections and two Republican county commissioners over the use of Dominion voting machines in the 2020 election.
The right-wing legal bid thrown out yesterday alleged that Dominion breached a contract with the county by failing to provide an accurate voting system and in turn, violated the constitutional rights of voters. Fulton County also sought monetary damages.
In a September 2023 order, Carter-appointed Judge Sylvia H. Rambo tossed out most of the county’s legal claims, which were based on former President Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations of fraud after the 2020 election.
Rambo’s ruling specifically put an end to Fulton County’s breach of contract and warranty claims, but allowed the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint regarding how the allegedly defective Dominion Voting System failed to conform with the county’s contract.
But in yesterday’s ruling that once again granted Dominion’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Rambo concluded that the plaintiffs’ amended complaint was “in all critical elements, identical to the original complaint dismissed by this court on September 28, 2023.”
Rambo held that the two GOP county commissioners lacked standing to bring the suit and failed to demonstrate how they were harmed by Dominion’s voting system. Moreover, Rambo noted that the commissioners were not even signatories on the county’s contract with Dominion, thereby rendering their standing arguments invalid.
The two GOP commissioners, the county and their attorneys were sanctioned last April by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court as part of a separate legal action for giving copies of voting machine hard drives to a Michigan-based forensic auditing company.
The state Supreme Court issued the contempt order after the county defied a judge’s instructions prohibiting it from allowing for further inspection of its voting machines.
Fulton County had initially given a third-party consultant permission to inspect and secretly copy data from its voting machines back in December 2020 — a move that came as part of an effort to help Trump overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results.
Dominion voting machines — and electronic voting and tabulating equipment more broadly — have increasingly become the subject of right-wing conspiracy theories since Trump and his allies launched a concerted effort to overturn his 2020 election loss.
In April 2023, Dominion entered a $787 million settlement with Fox News following a defamation lawsuit against the network and some of its broadcasters who peddled conspiracy theories and erroneous claims surrounding the company’s voting equipment.