Ohio voting officials say they have not received reports of ballots with Trump’s name misspelled

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An Ohio secretary of state spokesperson and an X post by the Hamilton County Board of Elections said that neither organizations has received complaints from voters about ballots with misspelled candidates’ names, nor have they received returned ballots with the problem.
Ballots with damage to a candidate’s name would still be counted, Ohio’s secretary of state’s office and Hamilton County’s Board of Elections said.
The company that provides voting machines to Hamilton County said the type of ballot damage the posts cited would not stop their voting equipment from counting the ballots.

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Some social media users have shared images of unusual Ohio ballots and questioned whether the image means the state’s election is safe.

Ballots in Ohio are showing Trump’s name misspelled!" an Oct. 31 X post read, along with an image of a ballot with former President Donald Trump’s name spelled "Trun.p."

A Facebook post shared the same image and said, "Is this their way of taking him legally off the ballot in Ohio? ... All of these votes can be legally thrown out."

Ohio voting officials responded to the viral images, saying they have not received any complaints of ballots with misspelled candidates’ names, adding that those ballots would not be disqualified.

"The county board of elections has not received any complaints from a voter about a ballot damaged in the manner depicted by the posts. We also have not seen any ballots returned with this type of problem," Dan Lusheck, an Ohio’s secretary of state’s office spokesperson told Politifact. "The only reports we have seen of this type of damaged ballot are those circulating online."

Donald Trump

stated on October 7, 2024 in an interview with Hugh Hewitt

Of Gaza, “I’ve been there.”

Lusheck added that a ballot with a misspelled candidate’s name would still be counted.

An earlier post with the same image was shared, saying that the ballot was from Hamilton County.

The Hamilton County Board of Elections wrote in a Oct. 31 X thread that "the images may be a hoax." In the thread, the board said it had not received any complaints about ballots with misspelled candidate names and have not seen such ballots returned. The Board of Elections said they could not determine if the ballot in the image is a genuine Hamilton County ballot and reiterated that ballots with damage to a candidate’s name would still be counted.

Lusheck said it’s possible that the image could have originated from a sample ballot. and provided a link to a sample ballot with correct spellings of the candidates’ names, which could have been altered to misspell Trump’s name.

The company that provides election technology to Hamilton County, Hart InterCivic, told Agence France-Presse that its voting machines would count ballots with printing errors.

We rate the claim that "Ballots in Ohio are showing Trump’s name misspelled!" False.