(Headline USA) The U.S. Department of Justice has requested access to voting equipment used in the 2020 election in two Missouri counties in what appears to be a wide-ranging effort to more closely monitor election processes around the country.
A DOJ official in August contacted the county clerks and asked for access to their Dominion Voting Systems equipment, according to a memo from the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities that was shared Wednesday with The Associated Press.
Jasper County Clerk Charlie Davis declined, saying he no longer had the equipment. The memo said McDonald County Clerk Jessica Cole had the equipment, but also declined. In a statement quoted in the memo, Cole said state and federal law prohibits election officials from giving unauthorized access to election equipment.
The unconventional requests to a state President Donald Trump has won three times, first reported by the Missouri Independent, signal how the DOJ during Trump’s second term has sought a closer watch over how states run their elections. The president himself has sought broad authority over elections in the runup to the 2026 midterms that the Constitution does not give him.
Colorado-based Dominion has been frequently cited by those who claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and who have asserted. Dominion has fought back against those claims by filing defamation lawsuits that have resulted in massive settlements: The conservative outlet Newsmax recently agreed to pay $67 million and in 2023 Fox News agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million after the judge overseeing the case said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations against the company were true.
However, a forensic report last year showed cybersecurity flaws in Georgia’s Dominion voting machines.
Additionally, tech publication CyberScoop revealed in April 2024 that Dominion machines in Georgia suffered from a cyberattack, which forced local government officials to sever their connection with the state’s voter registration system in none other than Coffee County. Part of Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s election integrity case stemmed from Coffee County, due to a team led by Trump lawyer Sidney Powell allegedly accessing election equipment there in January 2021 in an attempt to prove fraud.
Despite the apparent vulnerabilities, Georgia still used Dominion last election. Officials said that overhauling the equipment would’ve been too much of a massive undertaking.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
