Viral Claim That Poll-Worker Marks Void Ballots Is False, Election Officials in Multiple States Say

Friday, October 16, 2026 · Society · GSM News

As early voting for the 2026 U.S. midterm elections gets under way in state after state, a post spreading across multiple social media platforms claims that if a poll worker writes anything on a ballot — a letter, a check mark, a star, or a letter standing for a political party — the ballot will be disqualified. The posts open with a claim that a reliable friend who just finished poll-worker training sent the warning, and the same text has appeared repeatedly across platforms. The Associated Press published a fact check of the claim on October 15 and found it false.

According to the AP, election officials in at least eight states have publicly responded to the claim. Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett said in a statement responding to the viral post that in Tennessee a ballot is not disqualified simply because an election official or poll worker makes an administrative notation on it, and he called the circulating claim incorrect. Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins said the same claim also circulated during the 2022 and 2024 elections. Election offices in Davidson and Montgomery counties in Tennessee said they had received phone calls from voters asking about the claim.

The Illinois State Board of Elections posted on X that under Illinois law election judges must initial ballots before issuing them to voters, that the initials are a safeguard, and that they will not disqualify a ballot. Cook County Clerk Monica Gordon said voters had asked her about the posts and that a member of Congress had also contacted her to ask whether the claim was true. Will County Clerk Annette Parker said the initials help officials identify ballots if they are later challenged or selected for review.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections explains on its website that election workers write on ballots for different reasons as required by law and that this does not affect whether a ballot will be counted. In most counties, for example, workers write a letter in a box in the upper left corner marking a ballot as provisional or absentee, so it can be identified if it is put into a tabulator instead of sealed in an envelope as intended. Some poll workers are instructed to write precinct names on ballots in preparation for postelection sorting, and numbers placed on mail-in or early-voting ballots allow officials to retrieve them if they are challenged later.

In Tennessee, local media reported that a voter who is concerned about a worker writing on a ballot can request a new ballot and start over, and the ACLU of Tennessee said voters can request up to three replacement ballots. Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology, told the AP that voters should get their facts from their local election officials. The fact-checking organization Snopes also debunked earlier versions of the same claim during the 2020 and 2024 election cycles.

Election Day for the 2026 midterms is November 3. Early voting has begun in multiple states, including Tennessee, where it started on October 14. (GSM, via the Associated Press)

Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 明尼苏达州圣保罗一处投票站外景（资料图）。Lorie Shaull 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。

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