Tennessee voting machines show wrong name selected
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
Some Middle Tennessee early voters said touchscreen ballot machines registered a different candidate than they chose.
Officials and fact-checkers attribute the reports to touchscreen error, not deliberate switching.
Background
The reports surfaced during early voting in Tennessee's 2026 midterm elections, fewer than two weeks before Election Day, in Williamson and Davidson counties — home to Franklin and Nashville. Marsha Blackburn, the long-time Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee running for reelection, was the candidate several voters said their machines defaulted to. Williamson County Election Administrator Chad Gray said the county found no discrepancies in its equipment, and Snopes, a fact-checking outlet, rated as False claims that machines were deliberately switching votes.
How it unfolded
- Oct 17, 2026Jackie Herrud said she voted early at the Longview Recreation Center in Spring Hill, Williamson County, and the machine kept returning her selection from Democrat Jerri Green to Republican Marsha Blackburn; she said poll workers had heard similar complaints.
- Oct 17, 2026Toni Fitzgerald said she had the same issue at another Williamson County location, with the button difficult to push, and kept pushing until the machine registered her intended candidate.
- Oct 20, 2026WSMV reported some early voters in Middle Tennessee said machines selected a different candidate than they chose, taking at least three tries; the Secretary of State's office said it had received one such complaint out of approximately 400,000 ballots cast.
- Oct 21, 2026Users on Facebook, Threads, X and other platforms shared a copied-and-pasted post claiming machines in Texas, Florida, Tennessee and Ohio change Democratic votes back to Republican unless the voter persists.
- Oct 21, 2026Stella Parton wrote in a Facebook post that at her polling place near Nashville she had to "go back three times and correct my vote" because it kept defaulting to Marsha Blackburn.
- Oct 22, 2026Snopes rated as False the claim that U.S. election machines in several states are deliberately changing voters' candidate choices in the 2026 midterms.
- Oct 22, 2026WTOP/AP reported the complaints had gathered tens of thousands of likes, shares and views on social media, appearing in Tennessee's Williamson and Davidson counties.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- The Tennessee Secretary of State's office said it received one complaint of this nature out of approximately 400,000 ballots cast and that voting systems have multiple safeguards.
- Official
- Williamson County Election Administrator Chad Gray said the county found no discrepancies in its voting equipment and recommends using a stylus and touching the middle of the candidate's box.
- Expert
- Snopes rated the deliberate-switching claim False, saying the reports were likely the result of human error or touchscreen alignment problems.
- Public
- Voter Toni Fitzgerald said older or elderly voters "could make that mistake" and advised voters to "triple check, quadruple check."
- Public
- Stella Parton said one of her selections "kept defaulting to Marsha Blackburn" and wrote, "Don't let them rig this election."
Still unverified
A copied-and-pasted social media post claimed machines in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and potentially other states deliberately change Democratic votes to Republican in the 2026 midterms; Snopes rated the claim False. A Facebook user said his mother-in-law's machine in Kendall County, Texas kept selecting Republicans; he said she ultimately voted as desired and that it could have been user error, but still concluded people were "jacking with our elections."