No, this video doesn’t show Kentucky voting machines blocking votes for Trump

On Halloween, days before Election Day, some social media users claimed something scary was happening with Kentucky voting machines.

An Oct. 31 X post shared a video of a person trying repeatedly to select the Republican ticket, former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, for president and vice president in the 2024 election. The Kentucky voter using the voting machine tried to make this selection by finger-tapping the small check box in the top left corner of a text field featuring Trump and Vance’s names.

After multiple tries, one of the person’s taps instead selected the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

"Some voting machines in Kentucky are NOT ALLOWING voters to select President Trump," the X post said. "Instead, when they tap ‘Trump,’ Kamala Harris ends up being selected."

Podcaster Joe Rogan amplified this video on X, where it has received millions of views, asking people if it was "Broken machine or election fraud?"

(Screenshots from X and Instagram)

Users on TikTok and Instagram also shared the video, making similar claims in English and Spanish. TikTok identified the video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. And the Instagram posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnerships with TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

But Kentucky election officials emphasized that this incident was isolated and it does not show fraud or widespread election interference.

Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown, a Republican, posted on Facebook at 1:43 p.m. on Oct. 31 that he was alerted to an incident that day in which one of the ballot marking machines malfunctioned. He wrote that the machine had been taken out of service and the county contacted the state attorney general’s office.

"We checked it and couldn’t make it recreate the incident reported," Brown wrote. "We had no complaints prior to or after the complaint. We have left the machine in full view and are awaiting further directions."

At 5:13 p.m., Brown gave an update on the situation, after the attorney general’s office had visited the vote center to inspect the device.

"In full disclosure, after several minutes of attempting to recreate the scenario, it did occur," Brown wrote in a Facebook post. "This was accomplished by hitting some area in between the boxes. After that we tried for several minutes to do it again and could not."

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, posted on X that his office’s Department of Criminal Investigations responded quickly to the Laurel County complaint. The department’s detectives recommended that the county clerk change out the voting machine.

"All Kentucky voters can have confidence that our elections are secure and any potential issues will be addressed quickly," Coleman wrote on X.

Brown explained on Facebook that the voting machine in the viral video is a ballot marking device, which marks blank ballots by how voters select options on the screen. Voters can review their selections before submitting their ballots.

If voters are satisfied with their choices, they can print the completed ballot and place it in the scanner. If voters make a mistake or there’s an error with the ballot, voters can "spoil" that ballot and receive another one. Kentucky law allows voters to spoil up to two ballots per election, Brown wrote.

Brown also shared a video of a county official testing the same voting machine used in the viral video. The official tried tapping the small check box, as the person in the viral video had, but it didn’t work. When the official tapped the center of the candidate’s name field, the box turned green to show it was selected.

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"These ballot marking devices are set for a voter to touch inside the whole box with the name of the candidates. In the video posted you can see us going back and forth through the names with no issues," Brown wrote. "There were no claims of any issues with the device prior, and none since it went back into service."

Brown and Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, confirmed that the voter who had the problem was able to cast her ballot, which was correctly marked and printed with her chosen candidates.

"There is no ‘vote-switching,’" Adams wrote on X, adding that people should get their voting information from "legitimate sources."

James Young, a former Kentucky election administrator and registered Republican, echoed this, posting on X that the viral video showed no fraudulent activity or "vote flipping." He wrote that the errant ballot selection appeared to happen because of where the voter had tapped the screen.

"If you look closely, the voter is attempting to press the small check box located within the text box. Consistently, the voter gently presses their finger on the thin border, which at times can cause an adjacent text box to highlight instead of their intended choice," Young wrote. "Had the voter pressed the center of the text box, this would not have occurred."

In October, PolitiFact fact-checked a false claim that voting machines in Tennessee were swapping votes from Harris to Trump.

Social media users claimed a video shows "voting machines in Kentucky are not allowing voters to select" Trump for president.

Kentucky election officials said they investigated the situation and found the incident to be isolated. The problem occurred because the voter inadvertently touched the wrong part of the voting machine’s screen.

Officials said the voter who had the problem was able to cast her ballot as she’d wished.

We rate this claim Pants on Fire!