What we know about counts in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin

As the 2020 election results continue to roll in, allegations of potential voter fraud have surfaced in a handful of highly contested states with tight margins. Here’s what we know about the vote counting process in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Arizona

Many Arizona Republican voters claimed they were instructed by poll workers to use Sharpies to fill out their ballots, causing the voting machines to not read them.

The claims, dubbed “Sharpiegate,” could be used in an attempt to undermine election results in the traditionally Republican state. The Associated Press called Arizona for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden around 12:50 a.m. Wednesday morning, and 97 percent of the precincts reported.

The videos and claims surfaced on social media Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning from people who said their ballots were rejected due to Sharpie markings. However, several top election officials and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said that brand-name pens were widely used and ballots marked with them were counted.

“There is no concern about the counting of the ballots because the pen is used to count the ballots,” Hobbs told CNN on Wednesday.

The Maricopa County Elections Department released an informational video on October 24 that showed voters how to use Sharpies on their ballots in addition to regular pens. Maricopa County includes Phoenix, the largest city in Arizona.

Megan Gilbertson, the department’s communications director, told Reuters the county began using new equipment last year that made the Sharpies the best ballpoint pens for filling out a ballot because of the quick-drying ink.

“The Sharpies are okay to use,” Gilbertson said. “They do not affect tabulation, and we encouraged them on Election Day because of how quickly the ink dries.”

Since then, Facebook fact-checkers have flagged social media videos and claims about Sharpie’s allegations as “false information,” according to Reuters. The social media giant has also blocked the hashtag #sharpiegate.

Michigan

A conservative social media account posted a claim that a large “treasure” of Michigan ballots, all voting for Biden, were “found” early Wednesday morning.

“So while everyone was asleep and after everyone went home, the Democrats in Michigan magically found a treasure trove of 138,339 votes, and the 138,339 of those ‘votes’ magically went to Biden.” Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, tweeted Wednesday morning. “That doesn’t seem suspicious at all.”

The unverified claim was amplified when President Donald Trump retweeted a post by Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak that featured a screenshot of an interactive map of Michigan’s election results showing Biden’s run increased by nearly 140,000 votes, while counts by Trump and others were unchanged.

Mackowiak has since removed his post. Twitter added a disclaimer to the Trump and Davis tweets stating: “Some or all of the content shared in this tweet is in dispute and could be misleading about an election or other civic process.”

Since then, the cited numbers have been reported as a typographical error made by a Michigan county clerk.

Shiawassee County Clerk Caroline Wilson told FactCheck.org Wednesday that she was responsible for the error. “Nothing was compromised in any way,” Wilson said. “It was clearly human error.”

The county reported to the Elections Office that Biden received 15,371 votes, compared to 21,354 for Trump. When the typo was made, it showed the count as 153,710, which far exceeded the county’s 55,612 registered voters.

Another Shiawassee County Elections Clerk, Abby Bowen, told FactCheck.org that the typo was quickly corrected, emphasizing that the election night reports are unofficial in any event.

“There was a typo in the initial report that was sent to the Elections Office. It was spotted in a very short time and was quickly corrected,” Bowen said.

“Everything that is reported on election night is unofficial,” he continued, “That is why we have checks and balances. This is not some type of electoral fraud. It was literally just a typo.”

Mackowiak was later corrected in a tweet on Wednesday.

“The tweet was honestly taken and shared,” Mackowiak wrote. “Now I learned that the MI update was referring to a typo in one county.”

Wisconsin

A conservative website called Gateway Pundit reported an unverified claim of voter fraud in Wisconsin after a FiveThirtyEight graph showed a sharp rise in Democratic votes around 4 a.m. Wednesday morning.

The president amplified the narrative with a tweet later that morning that read: “Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key states, in almost every case controlled and controlled by the Democrats. Then one by one, they began to disappear. magically how the surprise dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the ‘pollsters’ were completely wrong historically! “

Since then, Twitter has added a note to Trump’s tweet stating that its content may be “misleading.”

Election officials have since said that the rise in Democratic votes is not a fraud, but simply the moment they finished counting legitimate votes.

“We are not finding ballots,” Milwaukee County Director of Elections Julietta Henry told PolitiFact National. “The ballots are being counted.”

The increase in the graph showed when the City of Milwaukee reported its absentee votes, according to USA TODAYAnd since Democrats were more likely than Republicans to vote absentee in this election, the results by mail led to an increase in votes for Biden.

The Associated Press reported an increase in votes for Biden between 3:26 a.m. and 3:44 a.m. Democratic votes increased by 149,000, and Trump’s votes increased by 31,803. Milwaukee County reportedly accounted for most of the increase.