Election officials on Tuesday debunked a social media claim that a malicious poll worker threw out more than 100 ballots cast for President Trump in Erie County, Pennsylvania.
Erie County Board of Elections Chairman Carl Anderson III called the incident “unfortunate” in a statement on YourErie.com. “The person making the statements does not work in any way with Erie County or have any part of Erie County’s election process,” he said. “In fact, the individual is not a registered voter and is not believed to be a resident of Erie County, Pa.”
Anderson added that the matter “is now part of an ongoing investigation to pursue potential criminal charges.”
The viral fake-out originated with Instagram user @omg_seabass, claiming to be a poll worker and writing, “I’ve thrown out over a hundred ballots for Trump already! Pennsylvania gonna turn blue 2020!”
Self-described activist Mike Coudrey took a screenshot of the Instagram post and then tweeted out the erroneous claim.
It has since been deleted but not before being shared by conservative commentators such as Dinesh D’Souza, who blasted it out to his 1.8 million followers. The screenshot was retweeted 6,876 times.
Another tweet sharing a screenshot was retweeted by the Trump campaign.
