A viral claim that Joe Biden received 100% of over 138,000 votes during a ballot “dump” in the state of Michigan is spreading on social media under the guise that it proves there is significant election fraud in favour of the Democratic challenger.
The claim has been promoted by President Trump.
An example of the claim is below.
However the claim is false. And here is why.
Firstly, the graphics that show the apparently “magical” increase in votes for Biden (while other candidates did not increase their votes at all) is not from any official vote count from the state of Michigan. In fact they come from a third party company called Decision Desk HQ who operate their own real time electoral map graphics based on information released by electoral authorities from each state.
Secondly, and most importantly, the sudden increase in votes apparently offered to Biden wasn’t an increase at all, rather it was a DECREASE in votes. This happened after Decision Desk HQ made a typo when updating their electoral map (adding an extra zero after the intended number in a particular Michigan county) and then subsequently correcting their mistake, resulting in a large drop of votes for Biden. The two screenshots showing the disparity were then reversed to make it appear Biden had been afforded a “suspicious” increase in votes when the other candidates received no such increase at all.
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Here is a step-by-step as to what happened.
Decision Desk HQ, when entering the votes for Biden in Shiawassee County, intended to enter the number 15,371 (actually putting Biden behind Trump in that county.) However they made a typo and added an extra zero, as such entering 153,710 (an obvious mistake since this number would exceed the county’s population of just over 70,000.)
The typo resulted in Biden’s overall Michigan count being suddenly raised from 1,976,985 to 2,130,695. The mistake was picked up by users on Twitter who requested Decision Desk HQ fix the error. A screenshot of the temporary mistake can be seen below.
Decision Desk HQ did quickly correct the error, and removed the 153,710 number and entered the correct number, 15,371 (below.)
This resulted in Biden’s vote count going from 2,310,695 down to 1,992,356, which are the two numbers in the graphic spreading on social media.
So while the graphics are real, they don’t depict a vote increase, rather they’ve been reversed and show a vote decrease after Decision Desk HQ corrected their typo.
As such, the claim that Biden appeared to have magically accumulated over 138,000 of votes in Michigan is false.
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