No, Pennsylvania poll workers weren’t caught fraudulently filling out ballots

Elections officials in Delaware County, Pa., have been live-streaming workers counting votes there for the sake of transparency in a contentious election. 

Some social media users have shared clips from that footage and alleged that they show voter fraud. We’ve already debunked one such video. Another video has also been mischaracterized, according to the county. This recent one shows poll workers writing on blank ballots.

"More poll workers caught filling out ballots in Delaware County Pennsylvania," said one Facebook post, misspelling Pennsylvania.  

It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) 

Adrienne Marofsky, a spokesperson for the county, told us that the videos show poll workers copying information from damaged ballots the county received onto blank ballots so that the votes could be counted. 

Featured Fact-check

Donald Trump

stated on October 29, 2024 in a rally in Allentown, Pa.

In Lancaster, Pa., “We caught them with 2,600 votes. We caught them cold, 2,600 votes. ... And every vote was written by the same person."

Because the county received some ballots that were damaged, they couldn’t be scanned, Marofsky said. The scanner manufacturer advised poll workers to transcribe the votes onto clean ballots and scan those ballots instead, she said.

"As ballots were being transcribed, the original damaged ballots were directly beside the new ballots, and bipartisan observers witnessed the process at close range," Marofsky said. "Damaged ballots have been preserved." 

What’s not clear from the clips circulating on social media platforms is that bipartisan poll watchers were monitoring the process nearby, Marofsky said. 

We rate this Facebook post False.

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more.