Konnech, a small Michigan company that makes election logistics software, says a “smear campaign” whipped up by the controversial group True the Vote has led to death threats and forced the company’s CEO to leave home in fear for his and his family’s lives. The company believes a driving force behind the threats is xenophobia; Konnech’s CEO immigrated to the U.S. from China in the 1980s and became an American citizen in 1997.

In the past, the executive of a relatively unknown company might have chosen to ignore such claims to try to deprive them of attention.

But in the wake of the conspiracy-fueled Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and in the era of QAnon and Pizzagate — bizarre and baseless theories that have contributed to very real violence — that strategy may no longer be tenable. The experience of the election technology company Dominion Voting Systems, which became the target of widespread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, also underscored how wild claims could significantly damage a company’s business.

Just a few weeks after accusations against the company first surfaced, Konnech turned to the federal courts and filed a lawsuit. Konnech was “not going to take any chances and felt very strongly that it needed to act and act quickly,” said Jon Goldberg, a company spokesperson.

Konnech, which makes scheduling software for poll workers, joined a growing number of election officials and companies that have used defamation law to try to fight back against election-related conspiracies.

Dominion Voting Systems, as well as another election technology company, Smartmatic, have filed multiple lawsuits against media outlets and prominent Trump-world figures that spread allegedly defamatory claims about them in the 2020 election. Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, the latter of whom testified in front of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, have also filed lawsuits alleging that they were defamed by election conspiracy theories and subjected to “vitriol, threats, and harassment.” A Pennsylvania postal service employee also took legal action, and alleged that he was falsely accused of manipulating vote-by-mail ballots in the 2020 election. Conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have continued to spread, but there’s some indication that these lawsuits have pushed such claims farther from the mainstream of conservative media and toward the fringes, with some on the self-publishing digital newsletter platform Substack.

Konnech’s lawsuit targets True the Vote, which has made a name for itself with dubious claims of widespread voter fraud, including the film “2,000 Mules,” and has been increasingly linked to QAnon. Konnech claims in its lawsuit that True the Vote and its leaders, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, have falsely accused Konnech of orchestrating “a red Chinese communist op run against the United States” and improperly accessed Konnech’s data.

“I will state clearly and unequivocally: neither Eugene Yu nor Konnech are in any way associated with the Chinese Communist Party,” said Goldberg.

In an unusual move, a federal judge agreed to issue a temporary restraining order against True the Vote, which requires the group to turn over “all property and data obtained from Konnech’s protected computers,” and blocks True the Vote from “using, disclosing, or exploiting the property and data downloaded from Konnech’s protected computers.”

Additionally, Goldberg, the company’s spokesperson, told NPR that the company “has been and is working closely with law enforcement at multiple levels regarding True the Vote’s claims.”

The company also added an “election misinformation advisory” to its website to try to combat “false and malicious claims” from True the Vote.

True the Vote has denied any wrongdoing. “Everything we have ever said about any of this is true,” said Engelbrecht in a livestream the day the lawsuit was filed. “The allegations made by Konnech are meritless. True the Vote looks forward to a public conversation about Konnech’s attempts to silence examination of its activities through litigation.”

A representative of True the Vote also provided NPR with a letter sent to Konnech’s attorney, which claims that Konnech has made unspecified “inaccuracies and misrepresentations” to the court, and asserts that an unnamed “third party” first obtained Konnech’s data — not True the Vote.

How the threat of legal action affected “2,000 Mules”

Engelbrecht and Phillips previously executive produced and provided the research for the widely debunked election conspiracy theory film, “2,000 Mules.” And there’s some indication that the threat of defamation lawsuits may have slowed the spread of claims from the film.

The right-wing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza, who directed “2,000 Mules,” said that he decided not to include “ballot trafficking” allegations against specific, named organizations in the film due to legal concerns. Fox News has largely avoided covering the “2,000 Mules,” which D’Souza suggested is related to Fox’s fear of litigation.

Last month, the publisher of an upcoming book version of “2,000 Mules” also abruptly recalled copies from bookstores. NPR obtained the recalled version of the book, which, unlike the film, makes allegations against specific nonprofit groups, and accuses them of “organized crime.”

After one of those groups said the book’s contents were completely false and potentially “libelous,” True the Vote distanced itself from the book.

Meanwhile, the group has pivoted away from the “2,000 Mules” and toward Konnech.

True the Vote weaves a spy novelesque story

At an event in August dubbed “The Pit,” Engelbrecht and Phillips unveiled what they called the “Tiger Project,” which focused on Konnech. In interviews with far-right podcasters, Phillips has spun a cloak-and-dagger story that he compared to a James Bond movie, in which he helped uncover a supposed Chinese plot to infiltrate American elections.

In Phillips’ telling, he first heard about the company from “my guys” — unnamed “colleagues and friends” who invited him to their room in the Hilton Anatole hotel in Dallas one late night in January 2021.

“I get there and they’re putting towels, rolled up towels, under the doors and you know, and all my guys are armed,” Phillips said on the podcast “1819 News.”

Phillips said his colleagues showed him personal information for 1.8 million American poll workers, including “name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, banking information,” which supposedly was held on a server in China.

Konnech maintains that this claim is entirely false, and that all of its data on American customers is stored solely in the U.S.

After seeing this presentation, Phillips claims that he and Engelbrecht brought Konnech’s data to the FBI, which he claims then worked with them for more than a year on a supposed “counterintelligence” operation looking into Konnech. At one point, Phillips said he had a “secret squirrels” meeting with the FBI in Milwaukee to share information. Eventually, however, the FBI “completely betrayed us,” Phillips said, and told True the Vote that they were themselves under scrutiny from law enforcement.

True the Vote has not publicly provided evidence to support the claim of a “counterintelligence” operation along those lines, nor has NPR found any corroboration. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

True the Vote’s appeal to QAnon

Konnech argues that this wild story is a work of fiction.

“Konnech is extremely confident in the multiple levels of security it employs to protect its customers’ data,” said Goldberg, who noted that Konnech does not even possess information on 1.8 million poll workers. The real number is under 250,000, the company says. But rather than ignore True the Vote’s claims that they saw Konnech’s secure data, Goldberg said, Konnech essentially decided to take True the Vote’s claims at face value. In their lawsuit, Konnech alleges that True the Vote admitted to violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by accessing the company’s data.

At least so far, the claims against Konnech have not received widespread attention in more established conservative media. This case still demonstrates how allegations can spread through fringe online networks.

Phillips has specifically encouraged followers of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory — so-called “anons” — to research and post about Konnech.

“These people are the most amazing patriots that I’ve ever come in contact with,” Phillips said of QAnon followers. Phillips also appeared on an online show hosted by QAnon influencers, where he reiterated his praise of the “anons.” The left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters documented additional ties between True the Vote and QAnon. In a sign of how QAnon has moved closer to the mainstream of the Republican Party, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly posted messages from the group’s followers online, and featured a QAnon-linked song at a rally over the weekend.

A digital newsletter hosted by the online platform Substack has amplified the idea that Konnech represents “Chinese infiltration” of U.S. election systems. A spokesperson for Substack declined NPR’s request for comment.

Former Trump adviser turned podcaster Steve Bannon further promoted that Substack newsletter about Konnech in a post on the social media network Gettr. A spokesperson for Bannon also declined to comment.

The misinformation about Konnech has helped feed online harassment and threats against Konnech’s CEO and his family, Goldberg said.

“Might want to book flights back to Wuhan before we hang you until dead!” reads one email to the CEO cited in the company’s lawsuit.

Another aspect of Konnech’s decision to go to court, Goldberg said, involved the importance of maintaining faith in U.S. elections.

“They are facing a group that, through its own actions and by spreading falsehoods and misinformation, [is] essentially targeting the election process,” said Goldberg.

That sentiment appeared to be echoed in the restraining order handed down in Konnech’s defamation case.

Federal Judge Kenneth Hoyt wrote in his order that the evidence presented by Konnech showed that a restraining order “would in fact benefit the public’s expectation of integrity in the U.S. election process.”

President Biden’s declaration that “the pandemic is over” could complicate the administration’s effort to battle COVID-19, public health experts say.

Biden made the remarks in a Sunday broadcast of 60 Minutes. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over,” he said. “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing.”

The president’s comments come as public health officials are trying to convince Americans to get a new booster shot, and as the White House has worked unsuccessfully for months to convince Congress to provide more than $22 billion in new funding for the COVID-19 response. Since Sunday night, Republicans have already used his words to question vaccine mandates that are still in place for the nation’s military and other federally funded programs.

At the same time, nearly 400 Americans are dying each day of COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Multiple public health experts called Biden’s remarks “unfortunate.”

“When you have the president of the U.S. saying the pandemic is over, why would people line up for their boosters? Why would Congress allocate additional funding for these other strategies and tools?” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist and senior fellow with the Kaiser Family Foundation. “I am profoundly disappointed. I think this is a real lack of leadership.”

The remarks could cause political difficulties

The White House is currently fighting an uphill battle in Congress to secure $22.4 billion in emergency COVID-19 funding to support vaccinations, testing and further research. Some Republican support is needed in the Senate to secure the funding, which the administration has been seeking since the spring. It has been hard to come by as some GOP lawmakers argue that there is still unspent money from earlier COVID-19 funding measures that can be used.

In announcing the funding request earlier this month, an official told reporters on a briefing call that there is not currently “enough funding to get through a surge in the fall.” The administration has already stopped the program to send free test kits to Americans because of a lack of funds.

The president’s words could undercut the effort to get this money further.

Republicans are already using the statement to question the justification for ongoing pandemic measures, including the military’s vaccine requirement and mandates for vaccines and masks in federally funded Head Start education programs.

“Biden admitted last night that the COVID pandemic is over. In other words, there is no ‘ongoing emergency’ to justify his proposal for student loan handouts,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

Some public health experts agreed with Biden’s characterization of a “change” in the pandemic. “It is a reasonable thing to do as we collectively move on from this emergency footing that we’ve been on for the last couple of years, and try to navigate a new normal,” said Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of UCSF’s Department of Medicine. “It’s an appropriate way of thinking about the threat as it stands today.”

Acknowledging the shift shouldn’t stand in the way of funds for COVID-related efforts, said Dr. Tom Frieden, who led the CDC during the Obama administration.

“We don’t have a pandemic of Alzheimer’s disease or influenza or heart disease. But Congress still needs to fund programs to address those problems,” he said.

The ongoing booster campaign could face challenges

The Biden administration’s public health leaders have sometimes struggled at times to present a clear, unified message about COVID-19. His administration has at times been criticized for a lack of communication or issuing guidance that seemingly conflicts with available data.

Now, the president’s remarks have thrown another wrench into the mix at a crucial moment.

The administration has just rolled out a new bivalent booster shot designed to target the omicron subvariants that have dominated caseloads in the country in recent months, and the agency is working to convince Americans to go out and get it. (Since the CDC recommended the shot earlier this month, hundreds of thousands of Americans have received it.)

But health officials have long struggled to convince Americans to get their shots. Only 68% of Americans completed their original vaccine course, and fewer than half of those have gotten any booster shot.

Most troubling are booster rates for people over 65, said Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center. Data from the CDC show that while the vast majority of older Americans got the original vaccines, far fewer — only about a quarter — have also taken the two original boosters.

“If we do nothing else to reduce the number of deaths from COVID, we need to make sure that people who are at the greatest risk of severe illness and death — and that’s people over the age of 65 — that they get their booster,” Nuzzo said. “I don’t want to inadvertently send the signal that that’s not something they need to do anymore.”

She and other public health experts pointed to the winter, when a surge of new cases is likely as cold weather pushes socialization indoors, and holidays prompt people to travel to visit family and friends. A winter wave of cases will require tests, vaccines and other efforts to combat COVID, they said.

“I would say, let’s not declare the pandemic over,” said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University. “Let’s say that we’re in a very good place, and we need to continue working hard in order to stay in that good place.”

NPR’s Arnie Seipel contributed reporting.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranians took to the streets of the capital on Monday to protest the death of a young woman who had been detained for violating the country’s conservative dress code.

The semiofficial Fars news agency said students in many Tehran universities gathered in protest, demanding an investigation into the death of Mahsa Amini and the dismantling of the morality police, who were holding her when she died.

Witnesses said demonstrators poured into Keshavarz Boulevard, a central thoroughfare, chanting “Death to the Dictator.” They also chanted against the police and damaged a police vehicle. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.

Late on Monday, Associated Press reporters saw torched trash bins and rocks strewn across some downtown intersections as the smell of tear gas hovered in the air. Police closed roads leading to the central Vali-e Asr square. Plainclothes security forces and groups of riot police could be seen throughout the area, and mobile internet service was down in central Tehran.

Dozens of protesters on motorbikes briefly appeared at a couple of junctions, where they overturned trash cans and chanted against authorities before speeding off.

Demonstrations continued in other cities

Videos circulating on social media meanwhile showed a third day of demonstrations in Kurdish cities in western Iran as well as the northern city of Rasht and a university in the central city of Isfahan. The Associated Press could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage.

The morality police detained the 22-year-old Amini last Tuesday for not covering her hair with the Islamic headscarf, known as hijab, which is mandatory for Iranian women.

Police say she died of a heart attack and deny that she was mistreated. They released closed-circuit video footage last week purportedly showing the moment she collapsed. Her family says she had no history of heart trouble.

Amini, who was Kurdish, was buried Saturday in her home city of Saqez in western Iran. Protests erupted there after her funeral and police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators on Saturday and Sunday. Several protesters were arrested.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, who departed for New York on Monday to address the U.N. General Assembly, has ordered an investigation and vowed to pursue the case in a phone call with Amini’s family. The judiciary has launched a probe, and a parliamentary committee is also looking into the incident.

The hijab has been compulsory for women in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the morality police are charged with enforcing that and other restrictions. The force has been criticized in recent years, especially over its treatment of young women.

Dozens of women removed their headscarves in protest in 2017. Iranians have also taken to the streets in recent years in response to an economic crisis exacerbated by Western sanctions linked to Iran’s nuclear program.