A local news station in Pennsylvania showed "election results" that had Kamala Harris winning the swing state days before the polls even close on Election Day.
WNEP, an ABC affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, aired the "results" during a Formula 1 race on Sunday, raising suspicion of election fraud. The news station explained that the results were randomly generated and mistakenly aired during a test of their equipment.
The graphic showed Harris winning Pennsylvania with 52% and 100% of the vote counted, with Trump getting 47%.
"Sigh,” pollster Mark Mitchell, of Rassmussen, wrote in a post on X. “This is obviously test data plugged in by an idiot. The McCormick check mark isn’t even right. A Harris 5% PA win would be Venezuela-like.”
In a statement on the situation, WNEP said the results are not legitimate and that they were aired by mistake.
“Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did,” the station told the Daily Mail.
“The numbers seen on the screen were randomly generated test results sent out to help news organizations make sure their equipment is working properly in advance of election night.”
"The numbers were not reflective of any actual vote count. Pennsylvania law does not allow mail-in ballots to be taken out of their envelopes until 7:00 a.m. on Election Day, and no votes of any kind will be counted in Pennsylvania until after the polls close at 8:00 p.m. WNEP regrets the error and apologizes for any confusion. We have taken steps to ensure that it does not happen again.”
The station that aired the test "results" is an affiliate of ABC News, which has already faced scrutiny for partisan boosterism. The network aggressively "fact checked" Trump while failing to do the same to Harris during their only presidential debate.
The concern about the test "results" being aired in Pennsylvania comes as the rules of this year's election continue to be disputed in court cases across the country.
Trump's campaign successfully sued to extend a deadline Wednesday for an in-person voting option after voters in Pennsylvania's Bucks County, in the Philadelphia suburbs, said they were turned away.
"This is a direct violation of Pennsylvanians’ rights to cast their ballot — and all voters have a right to STAY in line,” the Trump campaign said in a statement.
Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes make it the biggest prize among the battleground states. Trump flipped the "blue wall" state in 2016 before Joe Biden reclaimed it by 80,000 votes four years later.
