Fact Check: Possible Voting Machine Glitch On One Ballot in Tarrant County, Texas, Did NOT Indicate Widespread Vote-Switching — Election Official Says Questioned Ballot Was Not Counted, Voter Was Issued A New Ballot

Did a possible voting machine glitch in Tarrant County, Texas, on one ballot indicate widespread vote-switching? No, that’s not true: Tarrant County elections administrator Clint Ludwig said he believes the one person making the claim about their vote changing from the machine to the printed ballot “did make a selection on the machine and that selection was printed on their ballot.” Despite election officials believing the ballot reflected the voter’s selection on the machine, the voter was issued a new ballot to replace the old uncounted ballot, Ludwig said.

The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on October 22, 2024. It opened:

For anyone voting in Tarrant County please triple check your paper ballots when voting! Voters are voting for one candidate and the ballot is changing the vote to another candidate.

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Oct 23 23:06:35 2024 UTC)

Clint Ludwig, Tarrant County elections administrator, posted a video response to the claim on the Tarrant County X account (archived here) on October 22, 2024. When reached by Lead Stories via phone on October 23, 2024, Ludwig said the statement posted on social media is his official response about the situation. In the video he says:

Good afternoon Tarrant County voters. We’ve had almost 102,000 show up to polls to cast their votes so far during early voting.
During that time, we have one individual who’s claimed that the vote that they selected on the machine was not the vote that was printed on the printed ballot. What we believe to have occurred is the individual
did make a selection on the machine and that selection was printed on their ballot.
When they went to cast their ballot, they checked it and realized that was not the vote that they wanted. This is not uncommon and there is a practice in place called ‘spoiling the ballot’ to handle this. The individual notified the lead clerk that they needed to spoil their ballot and he was issued a new ballot and able to vote.
Knowing this, you may vote with confidence in Tarrant County.

Update from our Elections Administrator regarding spoiled ballots. https://t.co/6kHPnhx8Yz pic.twitter.com/VASutuZYXD

— Tarrant County Elections (@tarrantelection) October 22, 2024

The post on Facebook referenced a tweet (archived here) that included a video of a man who says he voted in the White Settlement precinct:

‘I voted for one president, checked it on the video screen. When I got the paper ballot, it had the other candidate’s name on it. Check your paper ballots, everybody.’

BREAKING: Voters in Tarrant County, Texas are reporting that the voting machines are flipping their votes from Trump to Kamala Harris

The voters are urging everyone else to check their printed ballots before submitting them.

‘Reports were that people who selected Trump on the… pic.twitter.com/cWbjnZGBZB

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 21, 2024

The Dallas Morning News reported on the claim by the man (archived here) on October 22, 2024.

Tarrant County issued a press release about the claim (archived here) on October 22, 2024, that stated, “Tarrant County Elections has no reason to believe that votes are being switched by the voting system”:

On the first day of Early Voting, Tarrant County had more than 58,000 ballots cast in the General Election.
In one reported instance, a voter reviewed their printed ballot and found it did not correctly reflect his choice for President. The original ballot was spoiled, and the voter re-marked a new ballot with his preferred choice reflected.
Tarrant County’s voting system electronically marks a voter’s candidates selections and prints a final paper ballot for review before the ballot is cast. Tarrant County Elections highly encourages voters to confirm their selections on the physical paper ballot before placing it in the scanner to be counted.

Other Lead Stories fact checks about the 2024 election can be found here.