With early voting underway in the important thing battleground state of Georgia, a high election official within the state forcefully pushed again Wednesday on false claims of voting machine fraud — a debunked conspiracy principle that proliferated after the 2020 presidential election and has now been revived by some distinguished Republican figures.
“[There is] zero proof of a machine flipping a person’s vote,” mentioned Gabriel Sterling, a high official on the Georgia secretary of state’s workplace. “That declare was a lie in 2020 and it is a lie now.”
Sterling, in his feedback, referred to as out “sure congresspeople” — showing to reference Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who just lately pushed an unsubstantiated allegation {that a} Georgia resident’s early vote had been switched by a voting machine.
Greene, in an interview and social media publish, shared an unidentified Whitfield County voter’s declare {that a} voting machine had printed their poll with a unique choice than the one they’d made on the machine — a declare that native officers mentioned was merely a case of human error.
“People make errors. They’re referred to as errors for a cause,” Sterling wrote in a publish on X. “This challenge is human/person error, all the time will likely be. Whitfield Co. dealt with it & voter voted.”
In her tweet concerning the alleged incident, Greene instructed her followers to “please double verify your printed poll” earlier than turning it in, and famous that “we vote on Dominion voting machines” — a reference to the voting machine firm that was the goal of quite a few false conspiracy theories in 2020.
Greene pushed the identical claims in an interview final week with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in keeping with a clip posted on-line, claiming the machine “saved on switching the votes” of that voter.
“It sounds much like what we heard in 2020,” Greene mentioned of the incident, which occurred in her district, once more noting Georgia’s use of Dominion machines.
Stickers sit on a desk on the primary day of early voting on Oct. 15, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Megan Varner/Getty Photos
X proprietor Elon Musk — who, like Greene, is a supporter of former President Donald Trump — made comparable conspiracy principle claims whereas talking at a city corridor in Pennsylvania final week.
Dominion, within the wake of the 2020 election, filed a collection of defamation lawsuits after it grew to become the middle of a false conspiracy principle that voting machines had rigged the election in favor of Joe Biden. Final 12 months the corporate settled its landmark defamation go well with in opposition to Fox Information for a $787 million. The opposite fits are nonetheless ongoing.
In an announcement, Dominion pushed again on Greene’s new declare.
“The false declare that voting machines can swap votes has been repeatedly debunked,” a Dominion spokesperson mentioned. “As each state and native election authorities have confirmed, the problem in Whitfield County was as a consequence of voter error. The county offered the voter with a possibility to mark and print a brand new poll with their appropriate selections and the problem was rapidly resolved.”
In a press launch, the Whitfield County Board of Elections mentioned there was no challenge with the voting machine, and that this was “the one incident amongst over 6,000 ballots solid.”
“If we had cause to suspect that the machine was in error, we might have instantly taken the machine out of service,” the assertion mentioned. “No machines have been taken out of service.”
The assertion famous that Georgia legislation permits voters to void their printed poll “in the event that they make the flawed choice on the poll marking system.”
Greene, responding to a separate Fb publish by the election board, thanked the ballot staff for “resolving the problems” and defended their work, writing that it’s “not their fault.”
“They do not make the Georgia state election legal guidelines and they’re simply doing their jobs,” Greene mentioned of the ballot staff.
Talking on the press convention on Wednesday, Sterling mentioned the “principal scenario” they’ve encountered consists of “aged individuals whose fingers shake and so they in all probability hit the flawed button barely and so they did not evaluate their poll correctly earlier than they printed it.”
“Anybody claiming machines are flipping votes are mendacity or do not analysis,” Sterling wrote in a publish on X final week.
