The first three days of early voting in North Texas have already raised concerns with some voters about the system.
“That particular polling machine should’ve been shut down and examined right then, but they continued to let people use it,” said Tarrant County voter James Carpenter.
Carpenter posted a video on social media that has now racked up millions of views. In the video, he claims he voted for one political candidate, but his printed ballot marked a different one. The elections administrator said it was the voter’s error, not the machine.
“This is not uncommon, and there’s a practice in place called pooling the ballot to handle this,” said Clint Ludwig, Tarrant County Elections Administrator.
Concerns over the election system are also being heard in Dallas County. The elections office said on Monday that several machines glitched and duplicated ballots, causing long lines and frustrated voters.
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price said the issues were isolated.
“It’s always challenges on the third day here, and we are beginning to run as expected,” said Price. “All ballots were counted, all maintained, were spoiled with an initial and observed.”
Since these incidents, social media has been saturated with people voicing or sharing their concerns.
“Information wasn’t being pushed out as fast as it is today,” said UTD Communications Professor Janet Johnson.
Johnson told CBS News Texas that doubt in elections is nothing new, but now it’s at an all-time high.
“In 2000 with Bush and Gore and the ‘hanging chad’ incident, we spent weeks trying to figure out who our president was. But there was one thing missing that we have today that they didn’t have back then — social media. We did not have the information spreading like wildfire.”
Regardless of the rhetoric, Johnson said sources count.
“I was looking up studies, and it’s very rare that there’s voter fraud. There’s any type of complications. It’s very, very rare,” Johnson added.
