Misinformation about the election count continues to rapidly spread throughout social media.
One particularly false, viral claim that has been passed around among Trump supporters on platforms like Facebook and Twitter over the past few days: Poll workers are filling out ballots at the counting centers in order to steal the election from the president.
This isn't true. Period. Here’s what’s really going on.
In an effort to be more transparent, some counting centers have livestreams running so people can watch the election workers count ballots. Unfortunately, the livestream videos are being deceptively edited in order to spread misinformation.
In one viral tweet, for example, a 40-second clip, cropped from the original view, shows workers filling out a ballot. The tweet received thousands of likes and retweets and the video was viewed more than one million times.
The video shows two election workers sitting across from each other at a table. On one side, one election worker, pen in hand, fills out a ballot. On the other side, an election worker reads off a separate sheet of paper.
According to Delaware County, Pennsylvania election officials, those poll workers are fixing completely valid yet damaged ballots so the scanning machine can read it. They’re copying exactly how a voter filled out their original ballot and putting it on a new ballot so the machine counts each and every vote.
The process is legal and official. According to a press release on from Delaware County officials, the “arrangement was agreed upon between the Election Bureau and the former Republican Chairman of Delaware County Council, acting in his capacity as counsel for the Delaware County Republican Party.”
In fact, Delaware County officials provided an unedited screenshot of the scene showing "bipartisan observers" monitoring the same workers as they filled out the new ballot.
Other videos misrepresenting what is happening at counting centers are being quickly shared around online, too. A Facebook post that's received 100,000 shares as of this writing falsely claims a video from a Montgomery County, Maryland counting center shows a single poll worker changing a completed ballot.
Election officials say that the poll worker in the clip was taking part in a legit process where the ovals made by voters on some ballots need to be darkened in order for the counting machines to read them. No votes were changed.
These viral misinformation campaigns were especially popular in the growing pro-Trump “Stop The Steal” Facebook Groups. On Thursday, Facebook had to remove one of these groups which had amassed 300,000 members in just two days due to “worrying calls of violence from some members.”
As these falsities spread online, election workers continue to legitimately tally up ballots to make sure everyone’s vote is counted.
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November 07, 2020 at 07:15AM
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Viral videos of poll workers filling in ballots don't show what Trump supporters want you to believe - Mashable
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