Staff in Fulton County are working through a stack of provisional ballots
Credit: GETTY IMAGES
US 2020 election
A US election worker in Georgia has been forced into "hiding" after personal information including his numberplate was posted online by conspiracy theorists who wrongly believed he had spoiled a ballot.
A video was released on Twitter on Friday which claimed to show the man crumpling a ballot paper before discarding it.
The clip was widely shared online and incorrectly believed to be proof of voting fraud.
It comes as votes are counted in a febrile presidential election in which Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed with no evidence that the vote has been "rigged" by Democrats and his opponent, Joe Biden.
The man, who was working to count votes at the State Farm Arena in Fulton County, Georgia – one of the hotly-contested counties in which votes are still being tallied – has been forced to leave his home over fears for his personal safety.
Rick Barron, the election director for Fulton County, told reporters that the allegation was "undeniably" false and insisted that the paper the man disposed of in the video was not a ballot but instructions for staff.
He said the man was now "afraid to drive his car" after receiving threats.
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"The release of the video and its captions led viewers to believe the worker was agitated, which resulted in the worker crumpling and discarding a ballot," Mr Barron said.
He said the length of the piece of paper screwed up in the video is not the same as the size of paper ballots.
"One thing you need to know is that those ballots are 8½ by 19 inches long.
"At no time did you see him extract anything from an envelope and that crumpled piece of paper was instructions. [It] was a smaller piece of paper."
Mr Barron said officials are reviewing whether to provide additional protection for the worker.
“He is currently in hiding.” Fulton Election Director Rick Barron says an election worker at State Farm was falsely accused of throwing out a ballot, video uploaded to Twitter and his personal info including car license plate were released #gapol #Election2020 @wsbtv pic.twitter.com/zGs0gq5F5v
— Nicole Carr (@NicoleCarrWSB) November 6, 2020
Supporters of Mr Trump, angry at what they believe to be electoral fraud, have been protesting outside counting centres across the US.
Mr Biden leads the vote and is on the brink of winning the race. He requires only a handful of electoral college votes to win but counting has been delayed by the large number of postal votes sent in by Americans because of the coronavirus.
Mr Trump and senior Republicans have claimed that postal voting is vulnerable to fraud and have filed lawsuits in various states to stop the counting of mail-in ballots or to demand recounts.
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