Dispelling Unfounded Claims About Voting Machine Issues

Social media users have circulated claims that electronic voting machines are altering voter choices or displaying messages regarding candidate popularity. These assertions emerged primarily from posts discussing incidents in Tennessee, Texas, and South Carolina, as well as a specific case in Cook County, Illinois. Elections experts and state officials have rejected the notion of deliberate tampering, attributing the reported glitches to standard calibration errors or user mistakes. In most jurisdictions, the final count relies on a physical paper ballot rather than the digital screen, providing multiple layers of verification before a vote is tallied. The controversy gained momentum following a complaint by Stella Parton, sister of the late Dolly Parton, who posted on Facebook on October 21. She stated that she had to return to the voting station three times to correct her selection because the machine repeatedly defaulted to Marsha Blackburn. Blackburn, a Republican senator from Tennessee, is currently running for governor against Democrat Jerri Green. The Cook Political Report assesses that race as solid Republican. Local news outlet WSMV-TV in Nashville reported on October 21 that several early voters encountered similar difficulties where the electronic interfaces did not accurately mark their intended choices. Mark Goins, the State Coordinator of Elections in Tennessee, addressed the reports in a statement to local media. He clarified that the situation does not involve vote flipping. Instead, he suggested the issue stems from unintended touches that voters might not realize they have made. Goins emphasized that numerous safeguards exist between the initial selection on the machine and the processing of the ballot. Voters view a review screen of their choices before the device prints the completed ballot. This paper document can be inspected again before insertion into the scanner. Goins noted that the actual counting occurs via the paper ballot entering the scanner, not through the screen data. For a vote to be recorded incorrectly, every check and balance in the process would need to fail simultaneously. David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, discussed the phenomenon during a press briefing on October 22. He characterized the complaints as recurring, noting that similar allegations appear in almost every election cycle since 2008. Becker explained that some jurisdictions, including parts of Tennessee, utilize direct recording electronic machines, an older technology susceptible to minor calibration issues. However, he argued that for modern ballot marking devices, nearly all claims of altered votes result from human error. Becker added that if a printed ballot does not reflect a voter's intent, the individual can discard it and cast a new ballot. The Tennessee secretary of state's office did not respond to inquiries regarding these specific claims. Separate allegations arose in Cook County, Illinois, involving a viral video of a woman claiming her voting machine displayed a warning about her chosen candidate's unpopularity. The woman, identified as living in Streamwood, stated she selected Republican judges and received a notification suggesting people were not typically choosing that person. She claimed the message vanished after she made three selections in that race. Popular accounts on the social platform X reshared the clip, framing it as evidence of rigged elections and citing Dominion Voting Systems as the equipment vendor. Monica Gordon, the Cook County Clerk, labeled the account false and misleading. She stated that voting equipment does not provide information on candidate popularity nor discourage specific selections. Instead, machines display alerts when a voter fails to make all available selections in a race, a condition known as an undervote. Sally Daly, deputy clerk of communications at the Cook County Clerk's Office, confirmed that there were no Republican judicial candidates on the ballot, contradicting the woman's initial description. The woman later conceded she had mistakenly referenced the wrong race but maintained she saw the notification. Aris Garcia, the Streamwood Village Clerk, said officials attempted to replicate the reported message but could not reproduce the experience. Daly noted that this was the only such report received in a jurisdiction with approximately 1.8 million registered voters. Cook County utilizes the ImageCast X ballot marking device manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion was acquired by Liberty Vote, a firm established by Scott Leiendecker, a former Republican election official. Liberty Vote directed inquiries to Gordon's official statement. Federal certification standards require voting equipment to issue warnings for undervotes or overvotes, allowing voters a second opportunity to correct potential mistakes before finalizing their ballots.