Is the chairman of a Dominion Voting Systems subsidiary on Joe's Biden's transition team? No, that's not true: Retired U.S. Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Neffenger is the chairman of Smartmatic and a volunteer on Joe's Biden's presidential transition team, but he has no affiliation with Dominion. Smartmatic is a competitor of Dominion, not a subsidiary.
The claim appeared in a meme included in a post (archived here) shared on Facebook on November 15, 2020, under the title "So the chairman of the voting machine company is on Biden's 'transition' team? Gee that's not sketchy at all." It opened:
Insane! Dominion Voting Systems subsidiary, Smartmatic USA Board Chairman, is Vice Admiral Peter Neffenger (Ret.) Neffenger currently sits on Joe Biden's transition team! This is blowing wide-open.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Sun Nov 15 21:08:40 2020 UTC)
The Facebook post is a screenshot of a tweet by a Twitter account that does not include a name, but the account holder claims to be retired U.S. Air Force major:
💥💥💥INSANE!💥💥💥
-- Major Patriot (@MajorPatriot) November 15, 2020
Dominion Voting Systems subsidiary, Smartmatic USA Board Chairman, is Vice Admiral Peter Neffenger (Ret).
Neffenger currently sits on Joe Biden's transition team!
This is blowing wide-open.
h/t @SidneyPowell1 pic.twitter.com/MdsKzTzcMg
The claim is one of many attempts to discredit Dominion as purportedly being part of a conspiracy to change vote counts in key states to help Biden. This one, like others, conflates Dominion with Smartmatic.
The meme correctly states that Neffenger, who served as the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after retiring from the Navy, joined the Smartmatic board as chairman after leaving government service in 2017.
It is also true that Neffenger joined Biden's Agency Review team under the Department of Homeland Security team after the Democrat became president-elect in November, 2020.
It is not true, however, that Smartmatic is a subsidiary of Dominion. The only connection between the two companies is that Dominion bought Sequoia Voting Systems, a now-bankrupt California firm, in 2010. Sequoia had been previously owned by Smartmatic, which sold it in 2007 -- three years before Dominion bought it. Sequoia is no longer in business after filing for voluntary bankruptcy in 2014.
