The false claim
Social media users have falsely claimed that digital voting machines have been programmed to switch votes from Republicans to Democrats, or vice versa.
Why it’s false
The claim has been repeatedly debunked by election officials, voting machine companies, government agencies and by audits of election results. Though rumors and anecdotes have surfaced in several states since 2020, no evidence has emerged that a machine was programmed to flip any votes.
Those making the claims have never provided evidence to support that charge, and their lawsuits have been dismissed by courts.
Voters can sometimes experience issues with touch-screen voting machines if they are not perfectly calibrated or if voters do not touch the correct parts of the screen. Election officials and voting machine companies have instructed voters to touch the center of the selection box; missing the box, even by a little bit, can sometimes cause machines to misfire. But this is not evidence of fraud and is quickly remedied by trying again.
Most digital voting machines offer voters two chances to confirm their selections: once onscreen before confirming their picks, and again after a paper ballot has been printed recording their choices. Nearly all voting machines now contain a paper record, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive think tank. Election officials say it’s important to double-check the ballot once it’s printed to catch potential mistakes using the machines.
How the falsehoods are being used
After a rumor spread online in mid-October that votes were being swapped between candidates, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, claimed on Oct. 18 that votes were being swapped in her county. She claimed that a voter tried several times to cast a vote but that the votes were repeatedly switched.
County officials quickly refuted the claim, saying that just one voter had an issue with a ballot and the problem was quickly remedied.
Nearly identical claims emerged last week in Tarrant County, Texas, where voters said their selections were changed from voting for Republicans to voting for Democrats. Lara Trump, a co-chair of the Republican National Committee, appeared to lend credence to the idea when she falsely posted on X that the “error has been corrected.” In fact, there was no error, according to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who said none of the claims could be confirmed.
“In Tarrant County, we have only had one person say their vote was flipped out of 591,885 votes cast to date,” he wrote on Friday.
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The post No, voting machines are not intentionally ‘flipping’ votes between candidates. appeared first on New York Times.
