“Breaking: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says Dominion voting systems will NOT operate in the state of Florida. ”

Early voting has begun in some Florida counties, but a viral social media post claims a well-known voting system will not be in use at polling places.

“BREAKING: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says Dominion voting systems will NOT operate in the state of Florida,” an Oct. 21 Threads post said. 

Comments on the post hailed the supposed decision. “Why isn’t this the case everywhere?” one commenter said. But it also caused confusion, with another commenter asking: “So, how are we voting? I mean, what are we going to utilize?” 

We found similar viral claims on Instagram and X.

The Threads post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

We found no evidence to support the post’s claim. We reviewed DeSantis’ recent speaking engagements on the governor’s website and found no evidence of him making the statement. We also searched using Google and the Nexis news database and found no news reports of DeSantis making this statement.   

Dominion Voting Systems is one of two voting systems certified for use by Florida’s Division of Elections. Eighteen Florida counties will use Dominion’s Democracy Suite system in 2024 and the remaining 49 counties will use EVS by Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software, according to information on the Division of Elections’ website.

“Dominion systems are being used by voters across the State of Florida for the November 2024 election,” Stephanie Walstrom, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson, told PolitiFact. “The company has thousands of customer jurisdictions spread across 27 states.” 

PolitiFact contacted DeSantis’ office and the Florida Division of Elections but did not receive responses.

Dominion Voting Systems was the subject of many debunked claims during and after the 2020 election, from false statements that the company’s voting machines changed votes to claims that the company is owned by the family of Hugo Chavez, the former Venezuelan president.

Dominion Voting Systems  won a $787 million settlement against Fox News for repeatedly airing the false claims.

We rate the claim that DeSantis said Dominion Voting Systems would not be used in Florida False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.