Wrote: Fatbardh Dema
It has been claimed that voting machines for the presidential elections in the United States of America (US) are preventing voters from voting for Republican Party candidate Donald Trump, and that their vote is automatically going to Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris.
The claim was made by the Albanian-language Facebook page, "The Writing Investigator"which on October 31 published a video in which it is seen how the screen does not allow the vote for Trump to be pressed and then the square with Harris's name is selected.
"Voting machines prevent Americans from electing Donald Trump as their president, and instead automatically select Qamile. So how did our HALEati get so far?!" wrote "The Writing Investigator" as a description of the video, which by the time of being reviewed by hibrid.info has received 1.6 thousand views, around 20 reactions and 11 comments.
The truth?
The claim that voting machines are hindering voters from electing Trump as president is false. As US officials have said, the video in question is about voter error, not machine error.
The original post was made on social media in the US. Immediately, allegations were raised that the election was being interfered with. The case was also covered by the prestigious news agency "Associated Press", which has called the claim that vote fraud is taking place for the November 5 elections false.
As the AP wrote, it is an isolated incident caused by human error, according to the elections official in Laurel County, Kentucky, USA, Tony Brown. He posted a video on Facebook, in which he explained that to vote, you have to click in the middle of the square and not in the mini-square next to the name of the presidential candidate. According to his statement, which was taken as a basis by the AP, the machine was out of service until the investigation was carried out by the Kentucky attorney general's office and that after the investigation its work resumed. According to the official, there were no complaints about the machine before or after the incident and that the voter in the published video said that she managed to successfully cast her vote for her preferred candidate.
Additionally, in the state of Kentucky, voters are allowed to confirm their vote by typing on a digital screen before it is printed. But even if a voter sees that their vote was misprinted after printing, Kentucky law allows them to discard it and revote up to two times.
Early voting, or pre-voting (before election day) in the United States, is a common process in which people are allowed to vote by mail or at designated polling places, and is intended to increase voter turnout and avoid disruptions for people who work or have obligations on Election Day.details).
On November 5, the United States will hold its presidential election, where a new president and vice president will be elected. Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party and Donald Trump of the Republican Party are the favorites and are considered to be in a close race for the position of the next president (details).
Analyze:
The claim that voting machines in the United States are preventing voters from electing Republican Donald Trump for president is incorrect.
The publication, which initially circulated in English, and which was shared in Albanian on Facebook by the account "Investiguesi Shkrimor", was handled by the news agency "Associated Press", which announced that it was a voter's mistake and not a machine's. Furthermore, the voter in question admitted that she later voted for her preferred candidate.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses the publication of "The Writing Investigator" as "Unverified Content".
Reasoning:
The "Unverified" rating is given to those informative contents that do not provide sufficient information to confirm the claims made in the report, and which could not be verified due to certain circumstances (speed, lack of sources) during the publication of the content.