No, Fordyce, Arkansas, voting machines are not flipping votes from Republican to Democrat

Early voting in the 2024 election has been marked by several claims of voting machines flipping votes from desired candidates to opponents. One of the latest came from the Fordyce in Dallas County, Arkansas.

"A friend of ours in Fordyce, AR voted early today and discovered the machine had changed his votes on two candidates from the Republican to the Democrat candidate," a screenshot featured in an Oct. 22 Facebook post said.

The Facebook post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

State election officials say they investigated the voting machine in Fordyce and found no problems.

"When the allegation was made, local election officials pulled that machine," Chris Madison, director of the Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners, told PolitiFact. "They went ahead and did the calibration on the marking device and then they ran another test ballot and everything was working like it is supposed to. They were not able to replicate what the voter reported to their friend who posted it on Facebook."

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Madison said when such cases are reported, a voter has made a mistake. "It is often a user issue where they bump some other name," he said. 

Madison urged voters to use the stylus pen provided to mark their ballots to avoid such errors. He added that the voting machines have two review screens that let voters check their candidate selections before printing their ballots. He said even after printing, if voters aren’t satisfied with their choices, they can alert poll workers. 

"We spoil that ballot and then (they get) to vote with another piece of paper and make sure it is correct," he said.

Arkansas uses Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software voting machines, which the state and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission have approved.

We saw similar claims that machines messed with votes during the 2020 election, and they have resurfaced in 2024. They were not true then, and they are not true now. We rated recent claims by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., of vote flipping in Georgia and social media claims of vote flipping in Tarrant County, Texas, Pants on Fire!

We also rate this claim that voting machines in Arkansas changed votes from Republican to Democrat Pants on Fire!