FACT CHECK: Did An Audit Of Dominion Voting Systems Machines In Nevada Show A 70% Error Rate?

Elias Atienza | Senior Reporter

A viral Facebook post claims an audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines in Nevada showed a 70 percent error rate.

Verdict: False

The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office and Dominion Voting Systems refuted that an audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines in Nevada showed such an error rate. Clark County said in a statement that the “only 70% number” is the percentage of mail ballots that needed manual signature verification after machines from a different election technology vendor could not verify them.

Fact Check:

The election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems has been the subject of multiple dubious claims on social media since Election Day.

This particular Facebook post’s allegation about a Nevada audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines showing a 70 percent error rate appears to stem from a Dec. 14 tweet making a similar claim. The tweet attempts to cite a Las Vegas Review-Journal article explaining how ballots in the state are counted and verified, highlighting a specific line in the story.

The line and the article, however, appear to have been misinterpreted. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Clark County election officials said “about 70 percent of ballots are sent to be reviewed by election officials” after those mail ballots were run through a digital scanner. The article does not mention an audit of Dominion Voting Systems machines finding a 70 percent error rate at any point.

“The claim about the error rate is 100% false and unsupported by any evidence,” a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson confirmed to Check Your Fact in an email. (RELATED: Does Joe Biden’s Brother-In-Law Own Dominion Voting Systems?)

Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, used Agilis machines to verify mail-in ballot voter signatures, according to the Wall Street Journal and local ABC affiliate KTNV. Mail-in ballots that cannot be read by the machines undergo a manual verification process overseen by a bipartisan election board, the Nevada Independent reported. Agilis machines come from Runbeck Election Services, not Dominion Voting Systems.

The county election department’s “pre and post machine audits reflected no problems with Dominion machines,” according to a statement Clark County provided to Check Your Fact. The statement also said that the “only 70% number is the mail ballots whose signature had to be hand-verified, and could not be verified by the Runbeck Agilis (Signature verifying) machine.”

A spokesperson for the Nevada secretary of state’s office told Check Your Fact via email the claim is “not accurate,” adding that all post-election audits have been conducted and that there were “zero error rates.”

Nevada certified its presidential election results in November, and, according to CNN, its six state electors cast their Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden on Dec. 14. Congress formally certified Biden’s presidential election win early Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Elias Atienza

Senior Reporter
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