Some in the Oklahoma delegation double down on 2020 election concerns despite Fox/Dominion settlement

WASHINGTON — Despite Fox News paying nearly $800 million in a defamation suit to settle false election claims it aired, members of the Oklahoma delegation say they still have concerns about the 2020 election’s legitimacy.

Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems agreed to a settlement Wednesday over the conservative news giant deliberately airing false claims about Dominion voting machines in the 2020 presidential election.

Several members of the Oklahoma delegation said they paid little attention to the landmark defamation case.

“If you asked me what it was even dealing with I couldn’t tell you,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said. Mullin, who has already endorsed Trump for 2024, has ardently cast doubts on the 2020 election.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who also said he hasn’t been following the case closely, said he still has reservations about the security of the 2020 election.

“It’s not just around the Dominion voting machines,” Lankford said.

Lankford said he is still skeptical of some secretaries of state modifying election rules without support from their state legislatures.

“In our state, due to COVID rules, we went through the legislature and made changes to be able to have greater flexibility,” Lankford said, referencing the state’s one-year expansion of mail and absentee voting. “Other states just skipped that legal process.”

In 2020, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton used that legal argument in a failed Supreme Court lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The Court rejected Paxton’s suit stating he had no authority to challenge other states’ election rules.

But Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Tulsa) echoing Lankford pointed to Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution

“I still believe in what the Constitution says when it says the time, place, and manner of elections should be modified by the state legislatures, not by some other elected official or by a judge,” Hern said.

The Fox/Dominion settlement came a day before MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a firebrand election denier, was ordered by a private arbitration panel to pay a Nevada software developer $5 million in another rejection election fraud lies.

In 2021, Lindell presented data he claimed reflected Chinese interference in the 2020 election and offered to pay anyone $5 million who could prove him wrong. Robert Zeidman took up that bet and showed that Lindell’s data had no connection to the 2020 election.

In the Dominion settlement Fox admitted to making false claims surrounding Dominion’s voting machines and the 2020 election.

“We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” Fox said in a statement Wednesday. “We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

Dominion said it hopes the historic settlement sends a message against election lies.

“The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson said.

Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories by Gaylord News go to GaylordNews.net.