President Donald Trump amplified a debunked claim alleging that a Michigan vote update gave Joe Biden over 138,000 votes at once while the president got zero, Recode reports.
Trump shared a tweet -- whose author soon deleted it -- showing screenshots displaying an unusual jump in Biden’s numbers as votes were being tallied in the state.
The screenshots were from a map published by Decision Desk HQ, a firm that reports election data as it comes in.
The screenshots showed Biden rising from 1,992,356 votes in Michigan to 2,130,695 votes while Trump’s total remained at 2,200,902 votes.
Biden did not add 138K votes at once:
Decision Desk HQ explained that the data did not show that Biden added 138,000 votes at once but was rather caused by a technical glitch in the data reporting.
The firm told Recode that it was the result of a “simple error from a file created by the state that we ingested.”
“DDHQ does not correct/amend/adjust any state provided file. The state noticed the error and produced an updated count,” the firm said in a statement. “This happens quite a bit on election night, and we expect other vote tabulators in MI experienced this error and corrected in real-time like we did.”
Twitter flagged the tweet shared by Trump as misinformation before the original author deleted it.
"I have now learned the MI update referenced was a typo in one county,” he wrote.
Data shows Biden’s numbers didn’t jump:
Data from the Associated Press clearly shows that at no point in the night did Biden’s numbers dramatically jump.
Instead, they show a steady rise for Biden as urban votes and later early votes were tallied.
Though Trump led the count early, Biden now leads by about 149,000 votes in the state with some mail ballots, which have overwhelmingly favored Biden, left to count.
