Fact check: Detroit polling precincts faced a 'harmless data error,' city officials say

Sudiksha Kochi, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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The claim: An 'absentee ballot situation' in Detroit proves there was cheating in the election

As voters cast ballots on Nov. 8 for the midterm elections, some social media users claimed voter fraud was occurring in Detroit.

"The Absentee Ballot situation in Detroit is REALLY BAD," reads a Truth Social post from former President Donald Trump. "People are showing up to Vote only to be told, ‘sorry, you have already voted.’ This is happening in large numbers, elsewhere as well. Protest, Protest, Protest!”

Trump's Truth Social post garnered over 30,000 likes in less than a day. It generated thousands more interactions on Facebook and Instagram.

"The CHEATING is HUGE!!! Many states reporting Machine and ballot problems," reads the caption of one Nov. 8 Facebook post that shared a screenshot of the Truth Social post.

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But the claim of cheating is baseless.

While there was a technical error that briefly prevented some Detroit voters from casting ballots, the issue was resolved and no eligible voters were turned away at the polls, according to election officials. The situation is not indicative of election fraud, experts say.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment. Liz Harrington, Trump's spokesperson, did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.

Detroit polling precincts faced data error, officials say

The issue at the city’s polling precincts was a “harmless data error," Matt Friedman, a spokesperson for the City of Detroit Department of Elections, told USA TODAY in an email.

Friedman explained that the issue emerged after election inspectors in some Detroit precincts received a message in an electronic pollbook – which contains a database of eligible voters – indicating that the ballot they were going to provide to a voter had an identical number to an absentee ballot that was already issued.

Poll workers resolved the issue by adding an extra letter to the precinct ballots to distinguish them from the absentee ballots, according to the Michigan Department of State.

"Then voters, because they actually had not received or cast an absentee ballot, were issued the precinct ballot," reads a section of the Michigan Department of State's website about the incident. "In all circumstances eligible voters were able to vote."

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The error is not evidence of cheating, Corwin Smidt, a political science professor at Michigan State University, told USA TODAY in an email.

"The situation demonstrates that election administrators have systems in place that are extra attentive to preventing errors from occurring with an effective number of checks and redundancies," Smidt said.

As USA TODAY previously reported, Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security, said the agency had ''seen no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was any way compromised in any race in the country” in the midterm elections.

Factcheck.org, PolitiFact and the Associated Press also debunked the claim.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that an "absentee ballot situation" in Detroit proves there was cheating in the election. While there was a technical error that briefly prevented some Detroit voters from casting ballots, the issue was resolved and all voters were able to vote, according to election officials. The situation is not indicative of election fraud, experts say.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Detroit precincts had 'harmless data error,' officials say