Washington —

The new owner of Dominion Voting Systems affirmed in his first interview since buying the company that President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and pledged that his company’s machines, used by nearly a third of US voters, won’t be misused to help either political party.

Scott Leiendecker, a former Republican election official from St. Louis who already runs a separate election tech company, bought Dominion last month and rebranded it Liberty Vote.

The surprise move, and a public announcement that seemingly embraced parts of Trump’s push to transform voting procedures, spooked election officials around the US, raising concerns about the future of a company that unexpectedly found itself at the center of Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

After the 2020 election, Trump and his allies publicly claimed, repeatedly and falsely, that Dominion software flipped millions of his votes to Joe Biden. Some Trump allies also tried to breach Dominion machines, in hopes of proving Trump’s fraud allegations. Dominion filed defamation lawsuits against many of the Trump lawyers and advisers who pushed these lies, and against the right-wing TV networks that gave them airtime. (Its case against Fox News famously settled for a historic $787 million in 2023.)

Since buying Dominion last month, Leiendecker has embarked on a goodwill tour of sorts, meeting with about 80% of Dominion customers, spanning about half the country, and privately reassuring election administrators with a flurry of in-person visits and video conferences.

“I’m an election person. I’m not on anybody’s side or anybody’s team. I’m on the American people’s side. I’m on democracy’s side,” Leiendecker told CNN in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview. “I want to make sure everybody knows I’m not siding with the left or the right. That’s important to me.