Mark Lynch, a Republican Senate candidate in the US state of South Carolina, posted a video on X of a person using a machine during the June 9, 2026 primary, claiming a vote intended for him was flipped to another candidate. But officials said the person in the clip is failing to use the center of the field to make a clear selection and the machine is not used to record votes, merely to mark paper ballots that voters can review before submitting for tabulation.
"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 .
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 ).
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 ).
"Touch screen vot ing machines do not flip votes," Katina Granger, senior manager of public relations for ES&S told AFP in a June 10 email. "In this case, you can see the voter is attempting to touch the tiny check box," but she said voters should make their selection inside the large box containing the candidate's name, pointing to a video the company produced which demonstrates best practices.
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.
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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 the Lynch campaign for more details, but a response was not forthcoming.
Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation about US politics here .
This article was updated to add a comment from ES&S.
