Voting machines in Tarrant County, Texas are not switching votes

Context

In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, false claims have circulated on social media alleging that voting machines in Tarrant County, Texas, are flipping votes from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris. A video montage combining two videos (archived here and here), originally shared on X on October 22, has been widely circulated on the platform.

A specific post on X (archived here), dated November 1, 2024, gained significant traction with 2.5 million views and 63,000 likes. However, Tarrant County election officials have found no evidence to support these claims.

In fact

Tarrant County election officials say they have investigated the claims and found no evidence to support them. According to Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig, the isolated report involved a voter who, upon reviewing their printed ballot, noticed a selection they wished to change. Ludwig clarified in an official statement on X, posted on October 23, 2024:

"Tarrant County voters, we've had almost 102,000 people show up to polls to cast their votes so far during early voting. During that time, we had one individual who claimed that the vote that they selected on the machine was not the vote that was printed on the printed ballot. 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," he added.

Additionally, Hart InterCivic, the manufacturer of the voting machines used in Tarrant County, emailed an official statement to Yahoo News, affirming that their machines are secure, tested, and certified at both state and federal levels. 

Hart InterCivic added that their systems "cannot and do not flip votes." 

They explained that their machines underwent local testing in Tarrant County prior to the election and are designed to provide voters with multiple opportunities to verify their selections.

Allegations of voting machines "flipping" votes are not new. Similar claims were widespread during the 2004 presidential election when reports in Ohio and Florida suggested that touchscreen voting machines were switching votes. Investigations attributed these incidents to calibration errors and user mistakes, with no evidence of deliberate manipulation.

The 2020 presidential election also saw a resurgence of such claims, particularly involving Dominion Voting Systems, with allegations that votes were switched from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. These assertions were thoroughly investigated and debunked by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which stated, "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

Screenshot of an X post claiming Dominion voting systems switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden in 2020. (Source: X/Screenshot)

The verdict

The claim that voting machines in Tarrant County are flipping votes from Donald Trump to Kamala Harris is unsupported by evidence and follows a pattern of similar, unsubstantiated allegations from past elections. Statements from Tarrant County election officials and Hart InterCivic, as reported by Yahoo News, confirm that the voting process is secure and reliable, with no verified incidents of vote-flipping.

Follow Logically Facts' coverage and fact-checking of the U.S. Election 2024 here