Does a video on social media show a Kentucky voting machine marking Kamala Harris for president when the voter tried to press Donald Trump, leaving them unable to vote for Trump? Yes, but that is missing context: The Kentucky Board of Elections' general counsel told Lead Stories in a statement that, after the video was filmed, the voter was able to select their preferred candidate and submit their ballot with their choices correctly marked. The general counsel said the county clerk could not replicate "an instance of directly pressing a finger inside of the large Trump box leading to a highlighting of the Harris box." As a precaution, the voting machine was taken out of service for examination.
The claim appeared in a post and a video (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 31, 2024. The post said:
This is in Kentucky. I took this video, it was my vote. I tried to pick Trump 10 times, it would not work, so I began recoding and kept trying. I went to the head of the election board and will send this video to KY attorney General. @ScottPresler @JackPosobiec @DC_Draino
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Nov 4 23:01:34 2024 UTC)
Taylor Austin Brown, general counsel for the Kentucky State Board of Elections, emailed Lead Stories a statement (archived here) on November 4, 2024, about the claim that a voter in Laurel County, Kentucky, tried repeatedly to select Donald Trump, but Kamala Harris was selected instead. The statement explained how votes are cast in Kentucky:
That voter, like thousands of other Kentuckians have done, went to an ES&S ExpressVote machine in order to vote. The ExpressVote is a touchscreen ballot marking device that presents voters with their options for each race and then records them on a paper ballot. The voter then reviews the paper ballot that is printed and deposits it into a scanner. A vote is not cast until the paper ballot is deposited into the scanner.
... the voter was able to ultimately use the touchscreen correctly to highlight the field for Donald Trump and every other one of her preferred candidates.
The statement said the voter did not alert election poll workers until after she was able to vote successfully.
The voter then met with the County Clerk to show him the video she had captured on her smartphone. The County Clerk attempted to replicate an instance of directly pressing a finger inside of the large Trump box leading to a highlighting of the Harris box and was unsuccessful.
The ExpressVote machine prints out a paper ballot with the voter's selections for their review before depositing it "into the ES&S DS200 ballot scanner," the statement said. It then explained what transpired after the voter reported the issue with the touchscreen:
The County Clerk was able to press the touchscreen in an area not directly inside of either the Trump or Harris boxes, but rather somewhere in between the two fields and get a highlighted Harris box.
Despite not being able to directly replicate what was alleged by the voter, the County Clerk took the ExpressVote machine out of service at the polling location and contacted the Attorney General's office. The Attorney General's office then sent an investigator to the polling location to look into the allegations.
Lauren Adams, a spokesperson for Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, directed Lead Stories to Coleman's two messages on X from October 31, 2024 (archived here and here):
The Kentucky Attorney General's Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI) quickly responded to the complaint from Laurel County. Detectives have been in touch with the county clerk and recommended they change out the voting machine.
All Kentucky voters can have confidence that our elections are secure and any potential issues will be addressed quickly.All Kentucky voters can have confidence that our elections are secure and any potential issues will be addressed quickly.
-- Attorney General Russell Coleman (@kyoag) October 31, 2024
Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown (archived here) posted a video on November 1, 2024, on his official Facebook page (archived here) that showed how to use the county's ballot-marking machine:
A day earlier, on October 31, 2024, Brown also posted a message on his official X account (archived here) where he explained what had been done to try and replicate the voter's problem on the same voting machine she had used. Clicking in the area between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris' boxes did cause the same problem:
In full disclosure, after several minutes of attempting to recreate the scenario, it did occur. This was accomplished by hitting some area in between the boxes. After that we tried for several minutes to do it again and could not.
The video Brown posted warns viewers (at about 02:17) against touching the area between two name boxes, which, the narrator said, "could give you a false vote."
The voter who posted the video about the voting-maching problem ultimately was able to cast a ballot marked as she wanted, Brown said on X on October 31, 2024:
There were no claims of any issues with the device prior, and none since it went back into service. The voter who posted the video did cast her ballot which she said was correct.
Katina Granger, senior manager of public relations for Election Systems & Software (archived here), told Lead Stories via email on November 4, 2024, that, "Touch screen voting machines do not flip votes." She noted that, in the voter's video, "the voter is attempting to touch the tiny check box. They can touch anywhere inside the large box containing the candidate's name." She shared a video (archived here) of the voting process using the machines.
Granger said the most common reported issues "stem from a voter not touching the text box in the correct place," and continued:
Actual confirmed cases of voters having issues in touching the correct place on a touch screen are, in fact, rare. Voters can select and re-select candidates at any time prior to printing their ballot.
Voting machines are designed to accurately capture a voter's choices, and allow them to see and verify those choices on screen and on a paper ballot before casting that paper for tabulation. There is no scenario in which a voter would be forced to cast a ballot that they believe did not reflect their intentions.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims about voting and voting machines in Kentucky during the 2024 U.S. general election can be found here. Other Lead Stories fact checks regarding the 2024 election overall can be found here.
