PREMISE
The change in votes seen on live TV has not been proven to be absent of fraud.
CHECK THE CHECKER is a Facttreker category that is intended to review factchecks done by other factchecking organisations.
OVERVIEW
On December 14, 2022 Factcheck.org posted a Factcheck entitled “Human Error, Not Fraud, Shown in Fox Election Coverage of Georgia Runoff”. However, not enough information or facts were provided by Factcheck.org to determine the cause of the suspicious drop in votes displayed on live television. The ONLY evidence presented by Factcheck.org was a claim made by the Director of Media Relations at the Associated Press (AP News).
During an interview with Mark Rubio posted on December 8th 2022 the voter count appears to suddenly drop for both Walker and Warnock at the same time. Walker’s count at the time was 1,417,926 and Warnock’s was 1,429,004. When the drop occurred on live television Walker’s dropped from 1,417,926 to 1,407,578 (net drop of 10,348 votes) and Warnock’s dropped from 1,429,004 to 1,422,652 (net drop of 6,352 votes). The drop occurred at the same time and the video shows that Warnock had a net gain of 3,996 votes.
RELEVANT FACTS
RELEVANT FACT 1 (PRESENTED BY FACTCHECK.ORG) – The drop in votes, which was recorded on live Television, Walker appeared to have a suddenly net loss of 3,996 votes.
Warnock 1,429,004 – 1,422,652 = 6,352
Walker 1,417,926 – 1,407,578 = 10,348
Warnock 6,352 – Walker 10,348 = -3,996 loss in net votes for Walker
RELEVANT FACT 2. (PRESENTED BY FACTCHECK.ORG) – Factchecker.org said they spoke to Lauren Easton, and AP spokesperson, and were told in an email that the video which showed the suspicious drop was a human error.
“Human error caused us to briefly provide incorrect, overstated numbers for less than a minute on Tuesday night,” Easton said. “As soon as we saw the mistake, we quickly returned to providing the numbers reported by the state.”
RELEVANT FACT 3. (PRESENTED BY FACTCHECK.ORG) – The voter information displayed on FOX apparently came directly from the Associated Press and the AP confirmed as such.
OPINION
Factcheck.org was apparently not able to obtain proof that the claims made by Lauren Easton were factually accurate. The only evidence presented by Factcheck.org was that Easton said it was human error. Factcheck.org did not give any details as to how the “human error” occurred or even what the error was. The statement made via email by Lauren Easton is not a fact, but rather a “claim”. In order to prove a claim to be a fact details are required such as documents and data logs. No such details were provided by Factcheck.org. It is the opinion of this author that more investigation is needed as to how the error occurred in order to determine if there was fraud or other accidental voter counting errors that could have effected the election. At this time it appears to be a glitch in technology.
