More poll workers caught filling out ballots in Delaware County Pennsylvania.
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No, Pennsylvania poll workers weren’t caught fraudulently filling out ballots
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Videos show poll workers filling out blank ballots. County officials say the poll workers were copying information from damaged ballots onto blank ballots so they could be counted.
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Bipartisan poll watchers monitored the process, a spokesperson for the county said.
Elections officials in Delaware County, Pa., have been live-streaming workers counting votes there for the sake of transparency in a contentious election.
Some social media users have shared clips from that footage and alleged that they show voter fraud. We’ve already debunked one such video. Another video has also been mischaracterized, according to the county. This recent one shows poll workers writing on blank ballots.
"More poll workers caught filling out ballots in Delaware County Pennsylvania," said one Facebook post, misspelling Pennsylvania.
It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Adrienne Marofsky, a spokesperson for the county, told us that the videos show poll workers copying information from damaged ballots the county received onto blank ballots so that the votes could be counted.
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Because the county received some ballots that were damaged, they couldn’t be scanned, Marofsky said. The scanner manufacturer advised poll workers to transcribe the votes onto clean ballots and scan those ballots instead, she said.
"As ballots were being transcribed, the original damaged ballots were directly beside the new ballots, and bipartisan observers witnessed the process at close range," Marofsky said. "Damaged ballots have been preserved."
What’s not clear from the clips circulating on social media platforms is that bipartisan poll watchers were monitoring the process nearby, Marofsky said.
We rate this Facebook post False.
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Our Sources
Facebook post, Nov. 5, 2020
Delaware County elections livestream, visited Nov. 6, 2020
PolitiFact, Pennsylvania poll worker was copying information from damaged ballot, to ensure it was counted, Nov. 6, 2020
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Delco officials say viral video was manipulated and taken out of context, Nov. 6, 2020
Email interview with Adrienne Marofsky, public relations director for Delaware County, Nov. 6, 2020
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No, Pennsylvania poll workers weren’t caught fraudulently filling out ballots
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