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All it took was one mistake by a voter in Georgia to propel a conspiracy theory to nationwide attention and the upper echelons of Republican politics.
Election officials in the state said that the voter, a woman whose name they did not disclose, visited a polling site in Whitfield County last week and used a touch-screen voting machine to cast her ballot. She mistakenly selected one candidate’s name when she had intended to choose another.
The episode was over almost as soon as it began: The voter tried again, fixed the mistake and successfully cast her ballot. But online, the story quickly took on a life of its own, catapulted to prominence by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, and transforming into an elaborate conspiracy theory involving voting machines that were somehow “flipping” votes between candidates en masse.
The anecdote is among the first voter fraud stories to gain national attention ahead of Election Day, despite county officials’ repeated efforts to refute any suggestion that the issue has affected more than a single voter. As scores of voters flood early voting sites in swing states like Georgia, election deniers are searching for stories that can support their belief that election fraud is widespread, despite the repeated findings of courts and election officials that it is not. Even individual instances of voter fraud are extremely rare in American elections.
Claims that electronic voting machines flipped votes were a central part of former President Donald J. Trump’s voter fraud claims after the 2020 election. Allies of Mr. Trump swarmed news networks and courthouses with baseless claims that electronic voting machines, including those made by Dominion Voting Systems, were somehow altering votes. Dominion later sued several Trump allies and media organizations for spreading the falsehoods, winning millions in settlements.
No evidence has ever emerged that the machines were faulty, and statewide audits have confirmed the tallies presented by the machines.
A Facebook user first relayed the story about the Georgia voter, calling her “a friend of mine.” The post, which was undated, falsely suggested the person had tried voting several times while the machine changed the candidates between parties — an account that differs from the information shared by election officials. That post was shared by another Facebook user, whose post was picked up by Ms. Greene.
The congresswoman, who is known for advancing voter fraud conspiracy theories, then shared it Friday with millions of followers on social media.
“This is exactly the kind of fraud we saw in 2020 and it cannot be tolerated,” Ms. Greene wrote on X in a second post that was viewed more than 3.5 million times.
Ms. Greene also joined Alex Jones, the far-right radio host known for spreading conspiracy theories, on his livestream to repeat the false claim.
Ms. Greene did not immediately return a request for comment.
The false claim ricocheted across the internet, reaching tens of millions of views through posts on X, videos on Rumble and conversations on fringe social networks, according to a review by The New York Times.
Election officials in Georgia tried to counter the narrative, but their efforts appeared to pale in comparison to the reach that Ms. Greene and Mr. Jones had online. A news release shared by the Whitfield County Facebook page had just nine comments and was shared 12 times.
“While reviewing their printed ballot, the voter remarked that the ballot did not reflect their desired choice,” Shaynee L. Bryson, the election supervisor for the county, said in an email. “A poll worker immediately helped the voter spoil their printed ballot and assisted them in marking their desired choice, which was cast with no further incident.”
It was the only instance among more than 6,000 ballots cast in Whitfield County since Oct. 15, when early voting began, Ms. Bryson added.
“It got blown out of proportion by people that like to use Twitter and other social media,” Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said in a television interview on Sunday addressing Ms. Greene’s posts.
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