Donald Trump supporters raced to conclusions when election results appeared onscreen during a Formula 1 race on an ABC affiliate in Pennsylvania Sunday.
Of course, the election hasn’t happened yet, but that did not stop an online outcry when Scranton-based WNEP showed a graphic of Trump losing to Kamala Harris by 5% in Pennsylvania with all precincts reporting.
The station said on its website that those were random test results that accidentally aired.
“Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did,” it wrote. “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.”
That the goof happened in a hotly contested state perhaps revved up the baseless suspicions. Not to mention that Trump and right-wing media have preemptively sown doubt about the election after falsely crying foul in 2020.
“The cheat is in,” one person wrote on X.
Here are a few other over-the-top reactions:
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