Trump voters in battleground Arizona fear their votes are invalid due to Sharpie pens. Is 'Sharpiegate' real?
Election workers check the tapes from the voting machines to verify they contain the correct signatures from polling stations after polls closed in the general election at Ford Field on November 3, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan.
US election 2020: Donald Trump and Joe Biden continue to fight it out as votes are counted across the United States, including in many key states including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.|Live updates on US election
What’s an election with Donald Trump at the helm of the incumbent presidency without a little drama? Trump has stirred paranoia among his supporters by falsely claiming mail-in ballots could lead to fraud: an unproven claim, as the risk of election fraud in the US remains low.
US election 2020: Sharpiegate?
Now, Trump supporters claim that some votes in Maricopa County in Arizona, which is a major battleground are being invalidated. Wonder why? They claim it’s because the voters used Sharpie pens.
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As election results continue to be logged across the country, “Sharpiegate” has already taken social media by storm, especially among right-wing groups.
According to the Associated Press, Biden in leading Arizona with 51 per cent of vote, which means trouble for Republicans, who have historically maintained power in the state.
US election 2020: A rumour among many
This is not the only rumour making rounds on social media. Many such rumours about using Sharpies, or other writing tools have been making the rounds in Chicago, Connecticut, Michigan, and Massachusetts.
In Maricopa County, things were so delicate that election officials had to post a video to explaining that Sharpies were not interfering with the ballots.
US election 2020: But are Sharpies safe?
The Arizonian county had rolled out a new method of tabulating ballots last year, whereby Sharpie pens were touted as the best ones to use on Election ballots, for its ink dries the quickest, according to Megan Gilbertson, the Maricopa County Elections Department's communications director.
“The Sharpies are just fine to use… They do not impact tabulation, and we encourage them on Election Day because of how fast the ink dries”, Glibertson said in an interview.
Many Trump voters believed that poll workers were deliberately giving out Sharpie pens to voters to invalidate their ballots.
"There is no concern about ballots being counted because of the pen being used to count ballots," Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced on CNN, Wednesday.