As the counting wore down into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, those following along on social media began to note what they saw as discrepancies and oddities in the methodology and results of the count.
As the counting wore down into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, those following along on social media began to note what they saw as discrepancies and oddities in the methodology and results of the count.
US President Donald Trump took up the helm, and the tweet he shared was censored by Twitter.
WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT? https://t.co/6487pYLZnL
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
The tweet he referenced was deleted, and restated.
This tweet was taken and share honestly. I have now learned the MI update referenced was a typo in one county.
I have deleted the original tweet. pic.twitter.com/NXQINWDbEH
— Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak)
Fox News's John Roberts provided his own take on what was unfolding, referencing Bill Stepien and Jason Miller, Trump's campaign manager and advisor, respectively.
.@realDonaldTrump campaign manager Bill Stepien and advisor @JasonMillerinDC insist there is a path for POTUS to win. They say if all legal votes are counted - POTUS will win AZ by 30k votes, PA by 40k. They say he will also win MI, NC and GA
— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox)
Interesting was his use of the phrase "all legal votes are counted." The US will be looking at legal challenges in various states for various reasons over the next several days and possibly into the near future, especially regarding issues such as mail-in and absentee votes. Trump's campaign has already stated their intention to bring legal action to bear in Wisconsin and Michigan.
The controversy first started around the way votes were being counted in Michigan. Many people noticed the face that 128,000 votes for Biden appeared, one after the other, according to many outlets, as was pointed out by Eric Trump, who promptly re-tweeted conservative journalist Carmine Sabia's comment on the subject.
Nothing to see here! Friends we are all over this... https://t.co/5dopTSjZfx
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump)
From 128,000 people not one voted for President Donald Trump? Not one? https://t.co/X408lAtGsN
— Carmine Sabia (@CarmineSabia)
Austin-based columnist and podcaster Matt Mackowiak put up some graphic evidence regarding the apparent sudden 100% surge of Biden votes, which has already been flagged by Twitter as misleading content. This is what Trump shared.
An update gives Biden 100% of new votes — 128k+ pic.twitter.com/SPUrTf8gXN
— Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak)
Derek Duck dug deep and brought us two graphs, one for Michigan and one for Wisconsin. People have considered it to be very telling how the vertical lines appear out of nowhere on both of them. This could be considered an excellent way to describe the controversy:
OK. So both Michigan AND Wisconsin have VERTICAL LINES where Biden votes are injected in.
— Derek Duck (@duckdiver19)
This is crazy pic.twitter.com/2HKRb1FhEx
— Derek Duck (@duckdiver19)
"It's happening in multiple states." The next state to catch people's radar on social media was Wisconsin. Marina Medvin, an attorney and columnist for Town Hall, called attention to some statistics which have alarmed people:
Wisconsin:
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There are 3,684,726 registered voters.
So far 3,239,920 votes have been counted and going... (95% of precincts reporting)
Is it really possible that EVERY SINGLE registered voter voted? ?
? Check voter registration numbers against votes cast in each county. ?
— Marina Medvin ?? (@MarinaMedvin)
So Wisconsin discovered over 120,000 ballots between 3:30-4:30 in the morning. In just ONE hour
You're telling me that while Trump was ahead they managed to find 120,000 votes, giving Biden the lead.
This is outright corruption
— Alice (@themodalice)
A similar phenomenon had occurred in the state of Virginia:
Strike that. Just learned there was an error in reporting in Fairfax County. It will mean subtracting about 100K from the Biden total there. The Board of Elections site has not been corrected yet. https://t.co/jyClgbhlOp
— Julie Carey (@JulieCareyNBC)
Finally, the vote count for the state of Arizona also entered came under suspicion for the exact same reasons, with The New York Times's Patrick LaForge and independent writer and journalist Ben Shapiro weighing in on potential errors or worse.
An error was found in the data feed from Edison Research (used by @nytimes and other news organizations) for Arizona results -- 86 percent of ballots have been counted, not 98 percent. NYT has not called the state for Biden, though he still leads. https://t.co/mPDkiKsExQ
— Patrick LaForge (@palafo)
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)