No evidence machine flipped votes in South Carolina

"WATCH as this machine in the Saluda precinct in Greenville County flips a vote intended for Mark Lynch is flipped to another candidate, and ultimately to Lindsey Graham!" a June 9, 2026 post on X from Lynch said.

The video -- which shows a person making three attempts to select Lynch by clicking to the far left of the box with his name on a screen -- quickly spread to other platforms, including Facebook and TikTok.

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Screenshot from X taken June 10, 2026

Lynch was challenging incumbent Lindsey Graham, one of US President Donald Trump's most loyal allies in the Senate and a hawkish supporter of the Iran war, in the Republican primary.

Some polling had predicted the race might require a runoff, but Graham received more than 50 percent of the vote (archived here), advancing to the November election against Democrat Annie Andrews, according to unofficial results published by South Carolina's election commission. Lynch came second with 29 percent of the vote.

Voting machines are common targets for election fraud misinformation and the recorded interaction is not evidence that votes were being flipped. 

Patty Roach, interim director of voter registration and elections for South Carolina's Greenville County, told AFP on June 11 that the person in the video appears to be hitting the field for the candidate above Lynch with their fingernail.

The South Carolina State Election Commission also responded to Lynch's X post saying: "We advise voters to select the center of their intended choice rather than the edge of the selection area and to always double-check their selections on the review screen" (archived here).

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Screenshot of an X post taken June 10, 2026

The video shows an ExpressVote ballot-marking system from Election Systems & Software (ES&S), which is part of South Carolina's paper-based voting system (archived here). 

Roach said she was aware of technicians being called to service machines for screen calibration problems during the June 9 election, but precincts are equipped with multiple devices to service voters. Additionally, a person's vote is not recorded by the ballot-marking system.

"The machine puts out a paper ballot," she said.

Voters should always carefully review the printout, Roach said, and alert poll workers if there are any issues. There is a clearly defined process for issuing a new ballot if a person notices their selections are not accurately reflected, she said (archived here).

Once the voter is happy with the paper ballot, they enter it into a scanner to be tabulated.

Roach also said it is "not lawful for you to record your vote" confirming that the video shared by Lynch violates rules against filming in a polling location (archived here).

AFP contacted ES&S and the Lynch campaign for more details, but responses were not forthcoming.

Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation about US politics here.