EDMONTON -- Unlike the “Sharpie Gate” of the past, when President Donald Trump reportedly altered a map of Hurricane Dorian’s path, 2020’s version of the viral hashtag involves serious and unfounded allegations of voter fraud.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s unexpected and narrow win in the state of Arizona has fuelled viral allegations that Republican voters were intentionally given Sharpie pens at polling stations in a bid to invalidate their ballots.
“Have you heard about Dems distributing sharpie pens to Trump voters and then invalidating their ballots,” read one tweet, which was shared more than 1,300 times on election night.
“AZ update: apparently, the use of sharpie pens in GOP precincts is causing ballots to be invalidated. Could be huge numbers of mostly Trump supporters,” read another widely shared tweet by American Conservative Union Chair Matt Schlapp.
One of the most widely shared claims, a Facebook post labelled "Tonight's voting shenanigans," shows a woman in Maricopa County, Ariz. claiming that she witnessed election workers inside her polling station forcing some voters to use permanent markers to mark their ballots.
In the video, which has since been labelled as “false information” by Facebook’s fact checking initiative, the woman claims that those ballots were not being read by the voting machines. A man in the background of the video then claims it was an effort to block votes for Trump.
But claims that Sharpie pens would invalidate ballots are unequivocally false.
In fact, Maricopa County put out a video 10 days before the election explaining that voters could use Sharpies to mark their ballots because it’s the preferred method.
"Did you know you can use a black or blue pen or Sharpie to fill out your ballot in Maricopa County? The new tabulation equipment only reads the oval, so bleed-throughs are not a problem,” the video notes.
“At the vote center, you may notice fine-tip Sharpies are used. That’s because it’s the fastest-drying ink and works best on the tabulation equipment. If you’re filling out your ballot at home, you can use blue or black ink with ball-point pen or Sharpie. Just don’t use red ink. The tabulation equipment cannot read red."
In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, the Maricopa County board of supervisions critisised the ongoing questioning of election integrity in the U.S., noting that vote counting "is not a Republican or Democratic issue."
"An accurate vote takes time. It's possible the results you see now may change after all the votes are counted. This is evidence of democracy, not fraud," read the statement.
"Second, Sharpies do not invalidate ballots. We did extensive testing on multiple different types of ink with our new vote tabulation equipment... People who voted by mail could Sharpies, or use blue or black pens. Our elections department has been communicating this publicly for weeks."
Biden’s win in Arizona has been contested by Republicans because it has a long political history of being a red state.
The Associated Press declared Biden the Arizona winner at 2:50 a.m. EST Wednesday, after an analysis of ballots cast statewide concluded there were not enough outstanding to allow Trump to catch up.
Fox News, the network that aired throughout the White House on election night, also projected a Biden win in the state—a projection the Trump campaign publicly called on the network to retract.
The Trump campaign maintains that final vote tabulations will swing the president’s way.
“Late-arriving votes cast closest to Election Day are the ones being counted now," the president's campaign manager Bill Stepien said Wednesday, adding they expect between two-thirds and 70 per cent of the remaining uncounted ballots to be for Trump.
"That math adds up to a margin of around 30,000 votes in the President's favor," Stepien said, adding that Arizona "will come the President's way."
