The Man Who Bought Dominion

Scott Leiendecker is facing skepticism from both sides of the political spectrum

By Kristine Christlieb, MFEI News & Commentary Editor

October 27, 2025

Who would have guessed a company producing voting machines and software would become a household name? Ever heard of Election Systems & Software (ES&S)? It’s the largest voting technology provider in the U.S. How about Hart InterCivic? You probably haven’t heard of it either. But because of the controversy surrounding the 2020 election results and the string of defamation lawsuits that followed, it is highly likely you are familiar with Dominion Voting Systems.

When Liberty Vote, a newly-formed company, announced its acquisition of Canada-based Dominion Voting Systems on October 9, the business of voting jumped out of the business section and landed on the front page while election activists on both sides went on high alert.

Liberty Votes’s press release called its acquisition “a bold and historic move to transform and improve election integrity in America . . . led by nationally recognized election reform advocate Scott Leiendecker.” Who?

Scott Leiendecker’s Boots-on-the-Ground Election Experience

Leiendecker, a 49-year-old native of St. Louis, owns the Missouri-based poll book company KnowInk. Leiendecker’s background isn’t tech or business development. His background is election administration.

According to reporting from Axios, “Matt Blunt, who was then Missouri’s Republican secretary of state, appointed Leiendecker to a role investigating St. Louis’ elections administration after the 2000 election.”

The city of St. Louis, a Democrat stronghold in an overwhelmingly red state, has not had a Republican mayor in 76 years. Election results out of the Gateway City have long been suspect, but the 2000 presidential election was especially chaotic.

In July 2001, the newly elected Secretary of State Matt Blunt issued a report on the problems from the city's 2000 election, “Mandate for Reform: Election Turmoil in St. Louis.” 

Mandate for Reform: Election Turmoil in St. Louis*

*Grok-XAI-generated Research

The 2001 report to which Leiendecker was a likely contributor looked into the following problems.

Ineligible Voting: Allegations that felons (62–114 cases), deceased individuals (14 cases), and non-residents (e.g., 135 ballots by out-of-state voters) cast votes. Blunt sought verification of voter eligibility records and prosecutions for illegal voting.

Double Voting: Claims of 23–68 instances where individuals voted twice, often detected via computer matches of names, birthdates, and Social Security numbers. He called for audits of poll books to confirm and penalize these.

Invalid Registrations and Addresses: 79 votes from questionable addresses, including 14 from vacant lots and 14 from alleged "drop sites" (e.g., group homes or temporary locations). Blunt requested reviews of registration processes to identify and remove fraudulent entries.

Voter Purges and Access Denials: About 49,589 eligible voters were placed on an inactive list due to undeliverable postcards, forcing them to vote provisionally or travel to a central office, leading to long lines and disenfranchisement. He advocated investigating the purge criteria and poll management.

Polling Hour Extensions and Late Voting: A court order extended polls until 7:45 PM (45 minutes past closing), allowing at least 100 additional voters. Blunt wanted probes into the legality and administration of such extensions.

Court-Ordered Voting: 342 voters in St. Louis City and 891 in St. Louis County received emergency court orders to vote, with 143 unregistered past the deadline. He sought examination of whether these were justified or part of organized efforts.

Election Judge Qualifications: 45 judges were initially flagged as unregistered due to clerical errors but later cleared. Blunt called for scrutiny of judge appointments and training.

Excess Registrations: St. Louis City had more registered voters (e.g., 24,000 duplicates elsewhere in Missouri) than its voting-age population. He urged a full audit of voter rolls for duplicates and ghosts.

Security Lapses: Ballot boxes left unattended at 29 precincts, raising tampering risks. Blunt demanded investigations into chain-of-custody protocols.

Twenty-five years later, Blunt’s report feels eerily familiar. From the report and Leiendecker's involvement, we know Dominion's new owner has had experience with allegations of voter fraud from the very beginning of his career.

“Hot Spot” Election Administrator Appointment; Run-in with Ed Martin

Leiendecker became a valued member of SOS Matt Blunt’s election reform efforts. In 2005, Blunt, who had been elected governor, appointed Leiendecker to be the Republican director of St. Louis City Board of Election Commissioners, the state’s epicenter of election fraud allegations. Leiendecker saw that at least some of the problems in St. Louis elections were the result of administrative policies and errors. Handling those problems in the St. Louis election trenches laid the groundwork for his later entrepreneurial ventures.

When Leiendecker was appointed director, the Board of Election Commissioners was chaired by Ed Martin who currently serves as the Department of Justice’s U.S. Pardon Attorney and as Director of the Weaponization Working Group. Martin and Leiendecker’s careers overlapped for a year, but their acquaintance came into play again in 2010 when Martin ran for U.S. Congress from Missouri’s 3^rd Congressional District and contested the election results out of St. Louis.

Ed Martin, Department of Justice U.S. Pardon Attorney and Director of the Weaponization Working Group

It was a close race between Democrat Russ Carnahan and Martin, with the Republican losing by about 4,400 votes. Martin claimed widespread irregularities, including a late-night surge of absentee and provisional ballots out of St. Louis. Leiendecker defended the St. Louis ballot results saying there were “no shenanigans whatsoever.”

Less than a year later, in 2011, Leiendecker founded KnowInk. It was the first company to modernize voting with iPad-based Poll Pad technology, eliminating the need for paper voter registration rosters. The company saw rapid growth. It was named St. Louis’ fastest growing private company in 2020. In 2023, the company tripled its headquarters' size.

Leiendecker’s deep ties to the Republican Party make him automatically suspect with left-leaning election activists and have not shielded him from critics on the right. For example, at least one conservative activist in the election integrity community was not impressed with KnowInk developing the first-in-the-nation, Election Assistance Commission-certified poll book, writing:

"We know the KnowInk e-poll book is connected to the internet and can be hacked with a smart phone. Further, the modems and routers that are used to set up the wi-fi network to access the internet are not part of the certification program. E-poll books should be banned not certified."

Despite Liberty Vote's assurances it will comply with President Trump's March 25 executive order relating to elections, Michigan Fair Elections Institute’s Founder and Chair Patrice Johnson is taking a wait-and-see attitude. “I’m waiting to see what Liberty Vote actually does not what it says it’s going to do,” she said in a phone interview.

For now, Leiendecker isn't getting a thumbs up from either side.

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