No, small dot on Kentucky ballot doesn't invalidate vote

An image of a ballot with a tiny dot in the box to vote for Kamala Harris went viral on social media. 

“Kentucky Voters are noticing small dots in the Kamala Harris boxes, which could possibly make your vote inadmissible,” one post says. “If you see this ask for another ballot.”

THE QUESTION

Would the small dot shown in the viral photo make Kentucky’s ballot inadmissible?

THE SOURCES

THE ANSWER

No, the small dot shown in the viral photo wouldn’t make Kentucky’s ballot inadmissible.

WHAT WE FOUND

The ballot in the viral post appears to be a real Kentucky ballot. However, Kentucky election officials have said they’ve received no complaints about dots on ballots, and state law ensures that any ballots with a stray dot will be counted correctly anyway.

Neither the Kentucky State Board of Elections nor the state’s Attorney General’s office have received complaints from mail-in voters or in-person early voters about markings in the candidate selection field of their ballots, the Kentucky State Board of Elections said in a public statement.

“As no one has presented a pre-marked ballot to election administrators or law enforcement, the claim that at least one ballot may have had a pre-printed mark in Kentucky, currently only exists in the vacuum of social media,” the election board said in its statement.

The Kentucky State Board of Elections identified the ballot in the photo as a mail-in ballot based on the crease running through the middle. All of the state’s mail-in ballots come with instructions that explain if more than one candidate choice is marked in ink, the ballot will still be counted correctly if the voter circles their preferred choice.

Even if a Kentucky voter did find a small dot in a candidate’s selection box on their paper ballot, the dot would not be enough to count as a vote anyway.

Kentucky law recognizes the following marks as votes on paper ballots: the majority of the selection box is filled in, the selection box is circled or underlined, the candidate’s name is circle or underlined, the candidate’s party next to the candidate’s name is circled or underlined, a symbol such as an “X” or star next to the candidate’s name or a line that intersects two points of the candidate selection box without intersecting another selection box.

The dot meets none of these criteria, and so election officials would be able to easily discern a voter’s actual choice if they selected another candidate on the ballot.

If a Kentucky voter does see a dot on their ballot or has any other concern, they’re entitled to spoil the ballot and receive a new, clean ballot, the Kentucky State Board of Elections said. In-person voters can do this before making any candidate selections or after a ballot scanner has read their vote and registered an overvote, which is when more candidates are selected than is allowed.

There are systems in place nationwide to make sure a vote is counted and matches the voter’s intent, even if the ballot contains marks or errors like an apparently pre-printed dot in a selection box.

All states except for Connecticut and Louisiana have laws or policies to determine a voter’s intent in the event there are stray markings on the ballot so that those ballots can be counted, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 also requires that voting systems across the country have systems in place to notify a voter if their ballot selects more than one candidate for a single office and provide the voter with an opportunity to correct their ballot.