WASHINGTON (AP) - A judge Thursday rejected a motion by Fox News to dismiss a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought against the cable news giant by Dominion Voting Systems over claims about the 2020 presidential election.

In the 52-page ruling Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said that the voting machine company had shown that “At this stage, it is reasonably conceivable that Dominion has a claim for defamation per se.”

Denver-based Dominion filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the media organization alleging that some Fox News employees elevated false charges that Dominion had changed votes in the 2020 election through algorithms in its voting machines that had been created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late dictator Hugo Chávez. On-air personalities brought on Trump allies who spread the claims, and then amplified those claims on Fox News’ social media platforms.

There was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, a fact that a range of election officials across the country - and even Trump’s attorney general, William Barr - confirmed.

In denying the motion to dismiss the lawsuit Davis said that Dominion’s complaint “supports the reasonable inference that Fox either (i) knew its statements about Dominion’s role in election fraud were false or (ii) had a high degree of awareness that the statements were false.”