It has been two days since the voting for the US Presidential Election has closed but a lot has happened since then including President Trump filing a lawsuit to halt vote counting in key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Now, another piece of information doing the rounds is that Fairfax County gave 100,000 extra votes to Democrat nominee Joe Biden in Virgin.
The news comes at a time when Trump and his supporters have been making repeated claims of voter fraud. While such a mistake could make a major difference in the final vote count given that the contest so far has been quite close, social media users have been trying to verify the authenticity of the information.
Non Small Accusation
The information first flashed on the day of the election on the Twitter account for a clickbait website Arizona Informer, wherein a message claimed that Fairfax County, Virginia, had given Biden 100,000 extra votes. The message spread like wildfire and came just at a time when Trump's lead in crucial battleground states started slipping.
This further strengthened Trump's claims of voter fraud and social media users started questioning the authenticity of the information, which made the post viral. A lot has been going on since then but truth was unraveled finally.
Actually, the tweet exploited a clerical error of 100,000 extra votes being given to Biden in Fairfax County but was quickly corrected. According to Snopes, Gary Scott, Fairfax County's director of elections, told the website that there was an initial mistake made by ballot workers who were entering vote tallies into an Excel spreadsheet on Election Day. While entering the tally, the program accidentally tabulated the results for the 10th Congressional District three times. This resulted in the error showing 100,000 extra votes going in Biden's favor.
Error Rectified
Scott admitted of the error but has since clarified that it was just for a brief period for roughly 10 minutes. The error was rectified almost immediately. It took election workers another estimated 10 minutes to put the correct numbers online for the public to see, Scott told the website.
To put it in simple words, the erroneous figure was never included in Virginia's statewide tally and there were no extra 100,000 votes given to Biden. Understandably, the news was fueled by Trump's claims of voter fraud but it seems the message shared on Twitter by Arizona Informer is half baked.
