Twitter Video Purporting to Show a Delaware County Election Staffer Filling in a Blank Ballot Is Misleading, Officials Say

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Screen shot of the actual live stream video shows the election worker at a table with other coworkers in a room full of people. Bipartisan observers can be seen standing a few feet away at each end of the table, closely observing the worker from about six feet away. Image via Delaware Delaware County Public Relations Office.

An online video being circulated  on Twitter supposedly showing a Delaware County election staff member fraudulently filling in blank ballots is a manipulated video and not accurately representing the activity shown, according to a release from Adrienne Marofsky, public relations director for Delaware County.

The video was taken from Delaware County’s official live stream of the ballot counting process, but the circulated video crops out the surrounding area, including a view of bipartisan observers who were not more than six feet away from the staff member.

The video does not give the full picture of the process, according to the release.

Marofsky explains in the release that a machine extractor is used to open the ballots during ballot counting processing and that some ballots are damaged and can’t be properly scanned.  In those cases, the scanner manufacturer, Hart, suggests that votes from the damaged ballot be transcribed on to a clean ballot, which can then be scanned successfully.
Following Hart’s suggestion, the Chief Clerk of the Delaware County Bureau of Elections instructed elections staff to manually transcribe the damaged ballots.
As ballots were being transcribed, the original damaged ballots were directly beside the new ballots and bipartisan observers witnessed the process at close range. Damaged ballots have been preserved, Marofsky reported.

The cropped video shows an election worker, seemingly alone at a table, marking a ballot.

The full video on the live stream shows the election worker at a table with other coworkers in a room full of people with bipartisan observers a few feet away at each end of the table, closely observing the worker from six feet away.

That was the arrangement agreed to by the Election Bureau and John McBlain, the former Republican chairman of Delaware County Council, who is currently counsel for the Delaware County Republican Party.

The live stream was set up to allow residents to watch ballots being counted in real time.
“Unfortunately, some residents have altered the video and are making false accusations, which baselessly and wrongly attacks the integrity of the election staff and the completely transparent process by which votes are being counted in Delaware County.,” Marofsky stated.

County Council President Brian Zidek, speaking to the Philadelphia Inquirer, said the same process was used in 2016 for mail in ballots in the county.

“And just to make sure everyone is satisfied, we have cameras watching what is going on, in addition to the observers from both parties observing what is happening,” Zidek said. “To suggest there is a conspiracy is just nonsense.”

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