FACT CHECK: Media, Dominion, Arizona Sec of State Issue Contradictory Messages On SharpieGate As Expert Says It’s Real
An investigation by National File has revealed multiple inconsistencies into the explanations for SharpieGate
Following an election fraud expert vindicating National File’s reporting during Monday’s hearing in Arizona, and having discovered multiple new inconsistencies in the official explanations, National File is issuing a fact check on the Arizona SharpieGate controversy.
The hashtag #SharpieGate went viral during the presidential election in Arizona, with multiple claims that Sharpies would invalidate the ballots of Trump voters, and has been subject to fact checks by various organizations. National File can reveal that within the fact checks, media commentary, statements from election officials and voting machine companies, there are serious inconsistencies within their stories.
In a viral video from Maricopa County, one woman explained how she saw the ballots of two people ahead of her get rejected when using Sharpies, but that hers went through fine using a ballpoint pen. After she began handing out ballpoint pens, the sheriffs were called by poll workers and she was ordered to stop handing them out.
Fact checkers then supposedly “debunked” this viral video. Politifact, Snopes, and Reuters, among others, highlighted a video produced on October 24th by Maricopa County election officials, explaining that Sharpies could be used, and were in fact recommended due to their ability to dry quickly. They also explained that new tabulation machines could read them, and they had a new ballot design that prevented bleedthroughs.
Did you know we use Sharpies in the Vote Centers so the ink doesn’t smudge as ballots are counted onsite? New offset columns on the ballots means bleed through won’t impact your vote! Find a location before the polls close at 7 p.m. today at https://t.co/8YEmXbWyRL. pic.twitter.com/KKG2O8rQhf
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) November 3, 2020
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said in an interview on Fox that “nobody in a polling place… [would] give you a pen to mark your ballot that would invalidate your ballot. They knew what they were doing, and those ballots will be counted.”
Here is the Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs saying ballots marked with Sharpie markers will be counted. https://t.co/ZmYi5xysd4 pic.twitter.com/9VAyypGTqm
— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) November 4, 2020
However, there are a number of problems with these explanations. In the first instance, the initial viral video and further claims of Trump voters were not addressed. Specifically: If Sharpies were the recommended pen, why were there many instances of votes being initially rejected when they were used, regardless of any plan to properly tabulate rejected ballots afterwards? Why was the woman stopped from handing out ballpoint pens?
During Monday’s hearing on election integrity in Arizona, Trump campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani discussed a witness testifying that “all day she saw election officials constantly pressing the green button when somebody was voting,” which expert witness Colonel Phil Waldron explained was when a ballot has been rejected. “The green button was to say “okay there’s an error, so go ahead and push ‘cast ballot’,” and it punches that into an error file that can be adjudicated by the election administrator,” Waldron said.
https://nationalfile.com/fact-check-media-dominion-arizona-sec-of-state-issue-contradictory-messages-on-sharpiegate-as-expert-says-its-real/