With round two weeks to go till Election Day in 2024, on-line customers shared a rumor claiming a Texas county skilled points with voting machines “flipping” votes from Republican former U.S. President Donald Trump over to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Starting on Oct. 21, 2024, customers shared a video exhibiting interviews with two males within the city of White Settlement, Texas. The city is situated in Tarrant County — the state’s third-most-populous county, which incorporates Fort Value.
Nevertheless, native Democratic and Republican officers publicly clarified the rumor’s overblown nature, saying that the matter concerned a single particular person out of greater than 100,000 individuals reporting the purported voting irregularity. Additional, Tarrant County elections administrator Clint Ludwig stated in a video assertion that his workplace believed the matter concerned human error.
The Video Interviews
One outstanding instance of a person sharing this rumor originated from the @BehizyTweets account on X. On Oct. 21, the person posted the 2 video interviews (archived), writing partly, “BREAKING: Voters in Tarrant County, Texas are reporting that the voting machines are flipping their votes from Trump to Kamala Harris. The voters are urging everybody else to examine their printed ballots earlier than submitting them.” The submit acquired round 9 million views. Other users made comparable claims.
Within the video, a person figuring out himself as James Carpenter stated, “I voted for one president. Checked it on the video display screen. Once I acquired the paper poll, it had the opposite candidate’s title on it.”
The second man — figuring out himself as Lucas Clark — stated, “There have been two people who got here out and stated that their ballots had been modified.” Clark didn’t say he skilled points together with his personal poll. We didn’t discover contact data for Carpenter however did ship a message to Clark through Messenger asking if he had any data relating to the 2 individuals he referenced, as native officers stated they acquired just one report of a voter claiming to have skilled an issue. We are going to replace this story if we obtain a response.
Dallas-based WFAA-TV reported a girl named Jess Glover recorded the 2 video interviews (archived).
Tarrant County GOP Chairman: ‘Rumors of ‘Widespread’ Irregularities Are Not True’
Within the submit from the @BehizyTweets account on X — somebody who beforehand shared no less than one misleading claim about U.S. elections — the person additionally talked about a submit from Tarrant County GOP Chairman Bo French, particularly saying that French had posted on Oct 21 (archived), “Studies had been that individuals who chosen Trump on the display screen had been seeing Harris on the printed poll.”
Nevertheless, two days later, on Oct. 23, French posted that “rumors of ‘widespread’ irregularities will not be true.” His post didn’t point out any voter by title (archived), and browse:
Thus far in Tarrant County, we’ve seen document turnout. By means of 2 days of early voting, 116,000 individuals have voted in particular person. One particular person had a difficulty. Rumors of “widespread” irregularities will not be true. That stated, I strongly encourage all voters to examine their ballots earlier than submitting them. That’s simply frequent sense.
Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clarifies Rumor
In a video message posted on X on Oct. 22 (archived), Ludwig, the Tarrant County elections administrator, stated he believed the singular reported challenge concerned human error. He additionally stated the voter — whom he didn’t title — stuffed out a brand new poll and that an official invalidated the older poll in a course of generally known as spoiling.
Ludwig stated:
We have had nearly 102,000 individuals present as much as polls to solid their votes up to now throughout early voting. Throughout that point, we’ve one particular person who’s claimed that the vote that they chose on the machine was not the vote that was printed on the printed poll.
What we consider to have occurred is the person did select on the machine, and that choice was printed on their poll. Once they went to solid their poll, they checked it and realized that was not the vote that they wished.
This isn’t unusual and there is a apply in place referred to as spoiling the poll to deal with this. The person notified the lead clerk that they wanted to spoil their poll and he was issued a brand new poll and capable of vote. Understanding this, you could vote with confidence in Tarrant County.
Democratic and Republican Officers Converse on Rumor
In Fort Value-based KXAS-TV’s reporting on this rumor (archived), the information station interviewed Alisa Simmons, Tarrant County Commissioner for Precinct 2, in addition to the county’s prime govt, County Decide Tim O’Hare. Simmons associates herself with the Democratic Celebration, whereas O’Hare is a member of the Republican Celebration.
Simmons informed KXAS of the declare of a voting machine switching a vote from one U.S. presidential candidate to a different, “There is no such thing as a indication. There may be zero proof that that has occurred.”
Acording to the station, O’Hare stated, “They did some pretty rigorous testing. Once more, out of 58,000 votes solid, that is the one one that’s come ahead and made such a declare.”
Officers with Simmons’ and O’Hare’s workplaces informed Snopes they had been unaware of any additional experiences of voters making claims of poll irregularities.
