Did the voting machine in Kentucky fail the voter to vote for Trump?

Claim:

A video posted on social media authentically shows a voting machine in Kentucky not allowing a voter to choose former Republican US President Donald Trump.

Rating:

What is true

The video in question shows a voter in Kentucky trying to vote for former US President Donald Trump, but the machine won’t let him. Ultimately, the machine selects Vice President Kamala Harris. According to a Laurel County official, this was a malfunction.

What is fake

The device in the video is not a vote tabulation machine, but rather a ballot marking machine that allows voters to make their selections on a screen before the machine prints a physical ballot reflecting those selections, which it is then entered into the tabulating machine. The Laurel County Clerk said the device in question was taken out of service until it was inspected. They also said voters have more opportunities to make sure their selections are correct before casting their ballots. The voter in the video was able to vote with their correct selections.

A video posted on TikTok which allegedly showed a voting machine in Kentucky not allowing a voter to choose the Republican presidential ticket of former US President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator JD Vance went viral on social media in late October 2024.

In the video, a voter tries to select Trump, but the machine initially doesn’t respond. Finally, it ticks a box for the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The video was widely shared on X, with one post receiving more than 2 million views and 24,000 shares at the time of writing. That user added: “Why does it always seem to go one way and not the other?”

Another person sharing the video on X said“The #80 million reason to switch to paper and ban voting machines for good”. Another widely shared postwith nearly 20 million views and 45,000 reposts at the time of writing, claimed: “Voting machines in Kentucky REFUSE to let voters pick Donald Trump’s name, automatically selecting Kamala Harris instead.”

While the video in question was genuine and the machine did indeed malfunction, it was not a voting machine that records votes directly. Rather, it was a ballot marking device that asks the voter to make selections on screen and then prints a physical ballot for use in tabulation. For this reason, we rated this claim as a mixture of true and false.

Laurel County Official Tony Brown said in a posted statement on Facebook:

The Attorney General’s Office was at the polling station to verify the device that was posted on social media today. In full disclosure, after a few minutes of trying to recreate the scenario, it happened. This was done by hitting an area between the boxes. After that we tried for a few minutes to do it again and couldn’t.

Initial statement continued as follows:

This is the same car used by the voter in the video. He remained in his location in the voting center and was seated face down until a representative from the Attorney General’s Office arrived to investigate. There have been no complaints of any issues with the previous device nor since it went live again. The voter who posted the video cast his vote, which he said was correct.

Brown also posted a video explaining how the ballot marking device works. Essentially, a voter inserts their paper ballot into the machine, makes their selections on the screen, which then prints the appropriate selections on the physical ballot that the voter will then hand in for tabulation.

The clerk explained:

It shows you who you’ve selected for each race and lets you know if you haven’t made a selection in a race before allowing the voter to continue to the next page. When you get to the end of the polls, it shows you how you voted in each race and issue. It confirms to each voter that it is satisfied with the selections made twice before printing the ballot paper. After you receive your ballot back from the ballot marking device, you can review your choices again before entering it into the scanner. If you made a mistake, you can destroy that ballot and get another one, Kentucky law only allows two altered ballots. Once you’re happy with your ballot, you can put it in the scanner and it checks if it’s been counted.

Additionally, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman POSTED on X:

The Kentucky Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) quickly responded to the Laurel County complaint. Detectives contacted the county clerk and recommended that he change the voting machine. All Kentucky voters can trust that our elections are safe and that any potential problems will be resolved quickly.

Coleman also released a statement through the official Kentucky website and said, “Every Kentuckian can have confidence in the security and integrity of our elections. Our dedicated team of investigators, prosecutors and support staff work tirelessly to protect every vote. We encourage anyone who suspects election law violations to contact the Attorney General’s Elections Fraud Hotline.”

Also, Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams reposted a news article about the defect and said, “There is no such thing as a ‘vote switch.’ The voter confirmed that her ballot was correctly printed as marked for the candidate of her choice. Get your voting info from legitimate sources, not TikTok or some t***s.

The Secretary of State was referring to a popular conservative X account that has 3 million followers. The account reposted another account that shares the claim and said“Funny how this always goes one way, doesn’t it?”

Snopes has reached out to the Laurel County Clerk to determine if there have been other reports of ballot marking machines malfunctioning and will update this article when we hear back. Similar reports from Kentucky appeared in 2023.

Snopes has covered a wide variety of voter fraud claims related to the 2024 US presidential election, including how late vote totals don’t indicate that voter fraud is happeningregardless of whether a large number of non-citizens vote in US elections and if you use a Sharpie marker invalidate the ballots.