Why did Kamala Harris get zero votes in this NY precinct? It’s not because of Elon Musk

Did Elon Musk hack the 2024 presidential election in President Donald Trump’s favor? 

Such claims were common on social media after the election — PolitiFact rated a claim that Musk used his Starlink satellite internet technology to manipulate votes Pants on Fire. 

But the allegation persists a month after Trump took office. Some social media users recently pointed to a November election precinct result in Rockland County, New York, as evidence.

A Feb. 24 X post said, "Musk's election hacking prowess is pretty crude, blowing data out in ways they almost seem to want to get caught. Rockland Co, New York: Harris supposedly received ZERO votes in a district that the Dem Senate candidate won by 79%?"

The post shared screenshots of results in precinct 35 in Ramapo, a town of about 153,000 people about 30 miles northwest of New York City. Screenshots showed Trump beating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, 552 votes to zero, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., beating Republican opponent Michael Sapraicone, 331-82.

We found other social media posts using the same precinct results to accuse Musk of hacking the election.

Setting aside the shaky logic of Musk hacking one precinct’s results in a blue state that Harris won by more than a million votes, it could seem jarring to see the Democratic candidate for president not win a single vote, even in a small precinct.

The screenshots showed accurate vote totals, but the results are not surprising or an example of hacking or fraud, experts told PolitiFact. They’re the result of a town with a large Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish population bloc voting in support of their rabbis’ endorsed candidates.

(Screenshot from X)

"This is not uncommon," Republican Jewish Coalition spokesperson Sam Markstein said. "You can go back several years to presidential elections," and see similar results. 

A closer look at Rockland County’s election results show precinct 35 in Ramapo was not an aberration. Trump won 55.4% of the Rockland County vote, besting Harris by 17,663 votes.

In Ramapo, Trump won 80 of 122 precincts. Aside from precinct 35, Harris earned zero votes in four other Rockland County precincts: precinct 45 (Trump 90-0), precinct 84 (Trump 558-0), precinct 97 (Trump 494-0) and precinct 122 (Trump 23-0).

In several other precincts, Harris received one or single digit votes, while Trump got hundreds. In precinct 55, for example, Trump outpaced Harris, 986 to 2.

The 2024 Ramapo results mirrored its 2020 presidential vote. That year, Trump bested former President Joe Biden 528-0 in precinct 35. In the 2022 midterm elections, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul lost to her Republican opponent, Lee Zeldin, 408 to 24 in that same precinct, which also overwhelmingly voted to reelect Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., over his Republican opponent, Joe Pinion, 266 to 113.

A screenshot shows certified 2020 presidential election results in Ramapo precinct 35. (Rockland County Board of Elections)

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Benjamin Rosenblatt, a New York elections data expert, said precinct 35 is in the village of Kaser, which is composed almost entirely of Hasidic Jews of the Viznitz sect. The village is surrounded by the hamlet of Monsey, which also has a huge Orthodox Jewish community, he said.

Rosenblatt said in Kaser, and other Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities in Rockland County, such as New Square, "voters often vote as a bloc, to an extreme degree." 

New Square has five voting precincts, including precinct 55, and across the five, voters chose Trump, 3,518 to 13.

The Jewish communities  "will often vote nearly entirely for one candidate in each race, but may not vote for the same party in every race," Rosenblatt said in an email. "For example, they may vote as a bloc for a Republican for President, but for a Democrat for State Senate or other local races."

That’s what happened here, as well as in 2020 and in midterm elections, Rosenblatt said. 

"These communities are often somewhat conservative, but the rabbis' endorsements play an incredibly large role in the communities' voting patterns, and that includes endorsements for Democrats in many races," Rosenblatt said.

An October 2024 Jewish Insider article described national Democratic and Republican party leaders heading to Rockland County to secure Orthodox leaders’ powerful endorsements.

Ira Sheskin, a University of Miami professor who tracks the Jewish population in the U.S., said his data shows in 2023 Rockland County had 109,900 total Jewish residents. U.S. Census data shows there were 340,807 total residents in the county.

Rockland County Elections Commissioner Patricia Giblin said the precinct 35 election results reflect the area’s longstanding trends. The Orthodox Jewish population "has consistently and overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates in the past elections," she said.

The Board of Elections "thoroughly reviewed the results and confirmed no irregularities, fraud or hacking," Giblin said.

New York State Board of Elections spokesperson Kathleen McGrath told PolitiFact that state voting machines aren’t capable of connecting to the internet and couldn’t be hacked, as the social media posts claim.

Each ballot cast has a paper trail and all ballots are kept secure in a bipartisan manner, McGrath said. County election boards conduct mandatory post-election audits to confirm the results before certification, she said.

Voters can choose straight-ticket voting or choosing candidates for different parties, so "claiming results of one race should be reflective of another race on the ballot are ill-founded," McGrath said.

Social media posts claim 2024 presidential election results in one Ramapo, New York, precinct — where Harris received zero votes — is proof that Musk hacked the vote count.

The precinct is in a heavily Orthodox Jewish area, where voters often vote as a bloc based on their rabbis’ endorsement. That’s likely what happened here, experts say, and previous elections showed similar patterns. Biden received zero votes in the precinct in 2020. 

A New York elections official said the state’s voting machines aren’t connected to the internet and can’t be hacked.

We rate the claim False.

UPDATE, Feb. 27, 2025: This story was updated to include a response from Rockland County Elections Commissioner Patricia Giblin.