Signs indicating the entrance of the polling location at Phil Moore Park on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, in Warren County. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)
The Kentucky State Board of Elections is refuting an election fraud claim made in another viral social media post.
The board issued a statement Monday in response to an image that has circulated online apparently showing a tiny black dot in the box for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. According to screenshots of the original post, the initial user urged voters to “take a pic of (their ballot) and ask for another one” if they saw something similar.
“Any other box filled in, will be void,” the post said.
The State Board of Elections said that for mail-in or in-person ballots “Kentucky law allows voters to register their vote should a situation like the one alleged on social media involving a pre-marked ballot actually exist.”
“As no one has presented a pre-marked ballot to election administrators or law enforcement, the claim that at least one ballot may have had a pre-printed mark in Kentucky, currently only exists in the vacuum of social media,” the board said.
Between mailing out more than 130,000 mail-in absentee ballots and Kentucky’s early voting period, the board and the attorney general’s office have not been made aware of ballots having “pre-printed marks in candidate selection fields,” the board said.
The photo with the original post appears to be a mail-in absentee ballot because of a straight crease in the middle of the paper, the board said.
“Every mail-in absentee ballot is sent to a voter with an accompanying instruction sheet that informs voters that if more than one candidate choice is marked in ink, the ballot will be counted if the voter circles their preferred choice,” the board said.
Should a paper ballot have a pre-printed mark in a candidate selection field at an in-person polling place, the voter would be able to “spoil” the ballot and get a “clean” one.
If voters’ see that their ballot does have a pre-printed mark, they should contact their local county clerk and the attorney general’s election hotline at 1-800-328-VOTE, so the ballot can be further examined.
It’s the second time the Kentucky State Board of Elections has reviewed an alleged issue that went viral on social media. Last week, the board responded to a video that appeared to show a Laurel County voter’s choice switch from former President Donald Trump to Harris.
The board’s statement said the voter showed the video to election officials at the polling location after she had corrected her selections and printed her ballot successfully.