At the end of October 2024, a video of an American voting machine was distributed on Telegram channels, which makes it possible to vote only for the Democratic presidential candidate. We have verified the accuracy of this video.
The video, which began to be actively published in major Russian-language Telegram channels on October 31, shows the touch screen of a voting machine, which, judging by the inscription on it, is located in the state of Kentucky. The voter filming the video tries several times to press his finger on the small white square next to the name of Republican candidate Donald Trump, but after several attempts, the machine suddenly highlights the name of his Democratic rival Kamala Harris in green, as if the vote was cast for her. TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov in his channel added: ""It actually happened," a Kentucky county clerk said, confirming that a glitch at the voting booth counted votes for Donald Trump in favor of Kamala Harris." This post has received 183,000 views at the time of writing this analysis. The video was also published, for example, by TV presenter Olga Skabeeva (70,000) and channels "Ne.Сaxap"(224,000), Rus_criminal (108,000), "Gossip"(86,000), "Urgently, now" (52,000) and "Federation"(50,000). A note from Izvestia about the incident reposted official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in her channel.
The main voting day for the US presidential election is November 5, but voters can make their choice early. By data NBC, more than 76 million Americans have already done so. Unlike the 2020 election, when Democrat Joe Biden encouraged supporters to vote by mail due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump insisted on going to the polls, this time candidates from both parties are actively promoting early voting.
Before reaching Telegram, viral video collected hundreds of thousands of likes and reposts in English-language social networks. Authorities in Laurel County, Kentucky, promptly responded to it, where the failure recorded in the video occurred. How reported County Clerk Tony Brown posted on his Facebook page that immediately after receiving the complaint, the device was turned off and sent for inspection. Later official stated, that, as an investigation into the incident showed, the cause of the incident was a voter error and an imperfect screen: “We tried for several minutes to reproduce the described situation, and we succeeded only once, when we clicked on the area between the voting fields.” Brown added that there were no other complaints about the terminal's operation, either before or after the incident, and the person who filmed the video confirmed that he was ultimately able to vote for his preferred candidate.
Later Brown published detailed video instructions for using such a machine. He emphasized that the terminal is not intended for electronic voting: the voter must insert a blank ballot into the machine and “mark” it, that is, cast his vote for a presidential candidate and contenders for seats in Congress and other elective positions, as well as express an opinion on issues put up for referendum. In this case, as the machine informs you before starting the procedure, you should press directly on the candidate’s last name, and not on the small square next to it, as the author of the video did.
The device then shows how the person voted on all items and asks for confirmation twice before printing the ballot. It, in turn, must be placed in a ballot box or placed in a special scanner to facilitate vote counting. If a ballot is found to have an error, a voter in Kentucky can cancel it and print a new one—state law allows you to do this twice.
Electronic voting is practically not used in the United States. Unlike Russia and some other countries, in federal elections in the United States it is forbidden vote online. About 98% of all votes are given on paper - ballots are filled out either by hand or using machines like the one used in Laurel County. However, in some cases such direct electronic voting systems polling stations do not provide a paper copy, and votes are stored on a hard drive.
Thus, although the video that went viral depicted a real-life situation at a Kentucky polling place, it was an isolated glitch in the machine, caused by imperfect design of the program and an error by the voter (who, according to local officials, still managed to successfully cast his vote for Trump).
Cover photo: screenshot of a viral video
Read on topic:
- Defocus What fakes about Trump are being spread in the USA (and why haven’t you seen them in Russian)
- Is it true that Joe Biden accidentally called for voting for Donald Trump?
- Is it true that Kamala Harris’ team used neural networks to create photos and videos of crowds of supporters?
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