Those Viral 'Vote-Flipping' Machine Videos Are From 2014, 2018 and 2019 — Reuters Fact Check Traces All Three to a Machine No State Has Used Since 2024
Three clips shared on X in October as evidence of vote-flipping in the 2026 midterms were originally uploaded in November 2014, November 2018 and August 2019. The machine in them, the AccuVote TSX, is obsolete — and none of the three jurisdictions in the clips has reported a machine mishap in this cycle.
Years-old video clips depicting uncalibrated touchscreens on a now-unused electronic voting machine are being falsely portrayed on social media as evidence of vote-flipping in the current midterm elections, Reuters Fact Check reports in a verdict published Monday and read in full by this desk. Amid unfounded allegations that past elections were rigged, some users identifying themselves as early voters have shared videos they say show machines automatically selecting candidates for voters, alleging the switches are actively occurring across multiple states. Reuters traced three of those clips — posted to X on October 21 and 22 — to their original uploads: November 2014, August 2019 and November 2018. The candidate names seen in the clips are linked to those old races, not the current vote.
The three documented incidents are specific, and old. The first, filmed in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, shows a voter in 2018 trying to select Democratic House candidate Tobi Beck as the mark repeatedly appears next to Republican Jim Baird; the voter ultimately marked his ballot as intended, and the county's elections specialist told Reuters the faultiness affected less than 1.5 percent of the machines in use in that cycle. The second was filmed in Lafayette County, Mississippi, during the 2019 gubernatorial primary runoff, where 19 votes were cast before a malfunction was reported and the machine was replaced. The third was filmed in Virginia Beach in connection with the November 2014 midterms; the city's elections director told Reuters the error was attributed to the machine's age and a lack of yearly maintenance, and that all 2026 midterm ballots there are paper. In each instance, Reuters reports, the error pictured was detected and corrected at the time.
The common thread is the hardware. From Verified Voting's registry of current voting equipment, Reuters identified the device in the miscaptioned posts as the AccuVote TSX, a direct-recording machine by Premier Election Systems, formerly Diebold — and according to the Verified Voting database, no state has used the AccuVote TSX since 2024. None of the three jurisdictions highlighted in the old clips has reported machine mishaps during the current election cycle. Reuters' verdict is one word: miscaptioned. For New Jersey voters meeting these clips on Election Eve, the desk's point is the dates, not the drama: a video whose ballot names candidates from 2014, 2018 or 2019 cannot be evidence about a vote being cast in November 2026, on equipment no state still uses.
