Posts baselessly suggest illegal ballots swung Michigan US Senate race

"Overnight, Slotkin received approximately 580,000 votes, 230,000 more than Mike Rogers with only about 20% remaining to count and Rogers had a 217,000 lead. Hmm," says a November 6, 2024 post on X.

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Screenshot from X taken November 7, 2024

Another post adds: "Legit? Or another 3:00am miracle-boost?"

While fraud allegations were rampant across the United States in the run-up to the November 5 election, most claims faded after the results showed a decisive win for Donald Trump in the presidential race.

The Michigan posts, which spread in the so-called "Election Integrity Community" set up on X by Trump surrogate Elon Musk to crowdsource allegations of fraud, include screenshots taken from the Associated Press election results tallies. 

The first image shows an update at 3am on November 6, with 77 percent of ballots counted and Rogers leading Slotkin by more than 215,000 votes. The second shows another update at 9:26 am with 98 percent of ballots counted and Slotkin having surpassed Rogers to take a roughly 11,000-vote lead.

Similar claims alleging a "4 AM ballot drop" or a "steal" spread across X as the Associated Press and other decision desks called the Michigan race for Slotkin. The misinformation echoed what accompanied President Joe Biden's victory in the swing state in 2020. As of November 8, the Michigan secretary of state's election results show Slotkin ahead of Rogers by more than 16,000 votes (archived here).

Nicole Meir, media relations manager for the Associated Press, confirmed in a November 7 email that the screenshots of the agency's updates are authentic.

But there is no evidence the shifts they show correspond to fraudulent ballots or other illicit activity.

"They reflect the ongoing vote count as reported by Michigan officials, with Slotkin overtaking Rogers as additional results were reported by Wayne County, a Democratic stronghold," Meir told AFP.

The Associated Press explained its decision to project Slotkin as the winner on its website, writing that they called the race at 3:12 pm on November 6 because the Democrat led by approximately 18,700 votes and there were not enough ways for Rogers to come out ahead (archived here). 

"Rogers had led before late-reporting votes from Wayne, home to Detroit, and other big Democratic-leaning counties lifted Slotkin ahead," the article says.

A sidebar on the agency's Michigan Senate results page says Wayne County released the results of just over 230,000 votes around 5 am on November 6 (archived here). The agency estimated 99 percent of votes have been reported as of November 8 (archived here).

In a November 6 press conference, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Wayne County had "no problems with counting or transmitting" its results and did so "on schedule" a few hours after midnight following the election, but that it took some time for the data to upload onto the county's website (archived here).

AFP contacted Benson's office for additional comment, but no response was forthcoming.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a November 6 statement that it saw "no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure" (archived here).

AFP has fact-checked other claims about the election here.