Voting malfunction highlights Harris' name with Trump selection, Kentucky county clerk confirms

Footage showing a Kentuckian attempting to vote for President Donald Trump but having her selection switched to a vote for Kamala Harris went viral this week, prompting concerns about possible vote rigging as well as about potentially deceptive video edits — with some partisans prematurely concluding, "This never happened."

Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown (R) initially suggested Thursday that the apparent malfunction reported at the Laurel County courthouse annex in London could not be recreated but later confirmed the video was in fact genuine and that the glitch was replicable.

"The Attorney General's office has been to the vote center to check the device that has been shown across social media today," Brown noted on Facebook. "In full disclosure, after several minutes of attempting to recreate the scenario, it did occur."

'It went back into service.'

Brown indicated that the glitch took place when "some area in between the boxes" was touched. Although officials observed the issue reoccur on one occasion, Brown noted that "after that we tried for several minutes to do it again and could not."

The county clerk clarified that the ballot marking device seen in the video shows voters their selections for every race and issue, then confirms that they are satisfied before printing the ballot. If the printed ballot contains an error, voters can spoil it and receive a new one. However, Brown indicated Kentucky law permits only two spoiled ballots.

Brown shared a video where the same machine allegedly functioned "with no issues," indicating that while it was temporarily taken out of service until a representative from the state attorney general's office arrived to investigate, there have been no issues "since it went back into service."

'I hate that this has occurred here in Laurel County.'

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman stated, "The Kentucky Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI) quickly responded to the complaint from Laurel County. Detectives have been in touch with the county clerk and recommended they change out the voting machine."

"All Kentucky voters can have confidence that our elections are secure and any potential issues will be addressed quickly," added Coleman.

Brown added that the voter whose selection was ostensibly switched from Trump to Harris ultimately "did cast her ballot which she said was correct."

"I hate that this has occurred here in Laurel County," continued Brown. "We strive to have accurate, secure and safe elections that we are proud to provide to our citizens."

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams stressed shortly after Brown confirmed the glitch was replicated at least once that "there is no 'vote-switching,'" reiterating that the voter who took the video ended up with a ballot correctly printed "as marked for the candidate of her choice."

"Get your voting information from legitimate sources, not TikTok or cat turds," added Adams.

Adams appears to have been referencing a viral post of the malfunction video on TikTok, which has over 241,000 likes, as well as a post by Phillip Buchanan, the individual behind the popular Catturd account on X, that had netted over 2.3 million impressions by Friday morning.

Michon Lindstrom, Adams' spokeswoman, indicated the secretary's office "has received no complaints about 'vote switching' or other long-ago debunked rumors," reported the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Laurel County overwhelmingly voted for Trump over then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020, 23,237 to 4,475. Trump won the state by over 25 points that year.

Coleman implored Kentuckians to report suspected election law violations to his office's election fraud hotline at (800) 328-VOTE, noting, "Our dedicated team of investigators, prosecutors and support staff is working tirelessly to protect every vote."

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