Trump exaggerates ballot mistake in North Carolina to alert of unlikely fraud

2020-09-26T18:50:38.014Z

Although some voters received two ballots by mistake, the state system prevents a person from voting twice and thus being able to manipulate the result, as the president denounces.

By Paul Specht -

Politifact

President Donald Trump believes he sees signs of possible electoral corruption in North Carolina.

“New: Some people in the great state of North Carolina have received TWO TICKETS.

MANIPULATED ELECTIONS on the way! ”Trump tweeted on September 17.

North Carolina could be key for Trump in the next election, and he's already tweeted questionable information about this state before.

Is your most recent tweet true?

Mecklenburg County election officials recently announced that an error with the first round of absentee ballots had caused some voters to receive two identical ballots, The Associated Press news agency reported.

Fewer than 500 voters were affected, Mecklenburg Elections Director Michael Dickerson said.

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As for the suggestion that the North Carolina election could be "rigged," the North Carolina director of elections said the state's ballot management system will not allow a voter to vote twice in an election.

"Each absentee voter has a unique code bar that identifies them, and the state system will not accept or count two ballots from the same person," Karen Brinson Bell said in a statement on Sept. 17.

"Once the ballot is sent and accepted, the voter's record shows that he or she has already voted," he said, "so if the voter sends another ballot, it won't count."

The state has already processed 88,000 of 817,000 mailed ballots, the official added.

The president's claim has an element of truth: an electoral board sent two ballots to some 500 voters.

But it leaves out one very important context: North Carolina election officials say their ballot counting system does not allow a person's vote to be counted twice.

That means this kind of mistake is unlikely to alter or manipulate the election, as Trump suggests.

That is why we qualify this statement as False.

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Source: telemundo

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