Pennsylvania was flooded with online misinformation on Election day. Due to an issue with a single voting machine in Scranton, Facebook and Twitter was swamped with misleading posts for multiple non-working machines in Joe Biden’s hometown.
After being shared numerous times on the social platforms, the false posts about the election process in Pennsylvania even managed to reach Donald Trump Jr.’s Twitter account, son of the US president.
According to the Washington think tank Emerson Brooking, “The fact that we are unlikely to know the result of that pivotal race tonight means that any incidents will receive disproportionate attention because there won’t be a resolution to the race.”
Despite the surge of mail-in ballots in the state, no problem with the voting process has been reported officially.
Nevertheless, it turned out that the broken machine was only one and it was restored in several minutes.
The Erie County Board of Elections Chair Carl J. Anderson III stated that the individual "making the statements" regarding the broken machine, did not work in any way with Erie County or "have any part of Erie County’s election process” and that this individual “is not a registered voter and is not believed to be a resident of Erie County, Pa."
Facebook and Twitter announced authorities had confirmed the misinformation claims and they were removed from the online platforms.
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