ABC has sparked wild conspiracy theories after mistakenly airing election results for Pennsylvania. The results appeared on a ticker along the bottom of the screen during ABC local affiliate WNEP-TV's Sunday coverage of the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix.
The shocking ticker showed Kamala Harris winning the state with 52 percent of the vote, while Donald Trump's share was displayed as 47 percent. WNEP-TV said that the numbers appeared on screen by "error" and were "randomly generated" as part of a test ahead of the election night on November 5. However, the incident immediately triggered accusations of election rigging on social media, with one person tweeting, "The cheat is on."
Major Mistake Sparks Wild Theories
Trump currently holds a lead in Pennsylvania by 0.6 percentage points, according to an average of top polls from Real Clear Politics. Biden narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2020, defeating Trump by 80,555 votes, or 1.17 percent.
Democrats have accused Trump and his allies of preparing to challenge a potential loss by fueling skepticism about the election's fairness.
He has painted Democrats as dishonest, labeled mail-in ballots as corrupt, and encouraged his supporters to vote in overwhelming numbers to make the election "too big to rig."
After the glaring mistake make by the WNEP-TV broadcast, one person wrote on X: "If the same graphics pop up after November 5th, with the same percentages & the same vote count, it'll be EXTREMELY suspicious. And the media wonders why nobody trusts them?"
"ABC is cheating for the Democrat machine. Their license should be revoked," another furious user wrote.
Broadcaster Apologizes
In a statement the broadcaster said: Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did. The numbers seen on the screen were randomly generated test results sent out to help news organizations make sure their equipment is working properly in advance of election night.
"The numbers were not reflective of any actual vote count.
"Pennsylvania law does not allow mail-in ballots to be taken out of their envelopes until 7:00 a.m. on Election Day, and no votes of any kind will be counted in Pennsylvania until after the polls close at 8:00 p.m.
"WNEP regrets the error and apologizes for any confusion. We have taken steps to ensure that it does not happen again."
ABC has already faced criticism from Trump and his supporters over alleged bias during the September 10 presidential debate. Conservative commentators argued that moderators frequently fact-checked Trump while allowing Harris to speak without similar scrutiny.
Moreover, an anonymous whistleblower claimed that ABC provided the Harris campaign with questions in advance of the debate.
