Fact check: No, delayed data in Texas e-pollbooks was not a sign of fraud, officials say

Sudiksha Kochi, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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The claim: Texas voting machine adding voters as polls close was election fraud

The 2022 midterms have sparked baseless claims of election fraud, fueled in part by problems some voting equipment encountered on Election Day. Some social media users claim a problem with a digitized voter registry known as an e-pollbook in Texas shows election fraud, too.

An Instagram post shared Nov. 13 shows a clip of a voting machine with the caption “footage reveals that poll pads in Dallas were caught adding hundreds of voters in real time as the poll was being closed.” People in the background of the clip can be heard saying "it just jumped again" and "mine jumped from 300 to 920,” among other remarks.

"Think about it, this time, the fraud is so undeniably obvious. It happened in every state, in every county," reads part of the post's caption. "Now the 'election fraud deniers' have no choice but to admit, the election can be stolen/tampered with."

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The post generated more than 1,000 likes in less than a week. Similar posts have amassed hundreds of interactions on Instagram.

But the claim that this activity is proof of election fraud is baseless.

E-pollbooks in Dallas County, Texas, encountered a processing delay that lead to data from already checked-in voters being downloaded after polls closed, according to a statement from the Dallas County Elections Department. This is normal activity and not proof of election fraud, Texas officials told USA TODAY.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment.

Despite delay, e-pollbooks accurately recorded voter counts

Dallas County used e-pollbooks created by Electronic Systems and Software, as shown in the Instagram clip, to check in voters prior to casting their vote on Election Day, according to the statement from the Dallas County Elections Department.

Each time an eligible voter checks in, a transaction is recorded locally on the e-pollbook and uploaded to a central server hosted by Electronic Systems and Software, the statement says. The central server then “allows all the other e-pollbooks in the system to download the transaction.”

The county noticed there were delays in downloading the transactions of voters – who had already checked in – to other e-pollbooks. These downloads continued after polls closed at 7 p.m. since traffic on the network had decreased by that point, according to the statement.

"Dallas County’s e-pollbooks functioned accurately, but slowly, and correctly recorded the number of voters who were issued ballots on Election Day," the statement says.

It is normal for e-pollbooks to update even after polls close, according to Katina Granger, an Electronic Systems and Software spokesperson. Slow processing is not indicative of election fraud.

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“As connections improve or network volume eases, the pollbooks upload and download transactions which may have been previously delayed – updating data across all pollbooks," Granger told USA TODAY in an email.

Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Texas secretary of state, said the system was created to coordinate voting across the county.

“E-pollbooks are required to communicate with each other and update in real time throughout the county, showing who has checked in at other polling places so that no voter can try to cast a ballot twice,” Taylor said.

PolitiFact and Lead Stories debunked the claim.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that a Texas voting machine adding voters as polls close was election fraud. E-pollbooks in Dallas County encountered a processing delay that resulted in data from already checked-in voters being downloaded after polls closed. It is normal for the equipment to experience delays and not indicative of election fraud.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Texas e-pollbooks experienced data delay, not fraud