Tucker Carlson falsely claims Arizona voting machines didn’t allow people to vote

Tucker Carlson falsely claimed on his nightly show that electronic voting machines in Arizona ‘didn’t allow people to vote.’Mr Carlson said a ‘huge percentage of electronic voting machines’ were faulty, calling it ‘an actual threat to democracy.’His claims, broadcast to millions of viewers on his Fox News show, were false.Officials in Republican-led Maricopa County reported a problem earlier in the day with ballot tabulation machines – machines that count votes – in 60 out of the county’s 223 voting centres.Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County board of supervisors, called it a ‘technical issue’ and said people were still able to cast votes.’None of this indicates any fraud,’ said Mr Gates, a Republican.’About 20 per cent of the locations out there where there’s an issue with the tabulator where some of the ballots that after people have voted them, they try and run them through the tabulator and they’re not going through,’ he said in a Facebook video.Mr Gates said that voters could still cast ballots at centres with faulty machines, but their ballots would be placed in a secured box until they can be transferred to a centre with working counters.Mr Carlson is not the only right wing figure who was sharing misinformation about Arizona in the hours after the incident.Former president Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: ‘They are trying to steal the election with bad machines and DELAY. Don’t let it happen!’Arizona has been a focal point for election conspiracy theories since 2020, when large crowds gathered outside of election offices outside of Phoenix, fueled by false claims of fraud.Joe Biden would ultimately go on to win the state of Arizona in a closely fought race, and despite several investigations, no evidence of any foul play was discovered.But two years on from that night, Arizona has remained a focal point for so-called ‘election deniers’ – that is, people who refuse to accept the results of elections that they lose. The state also has the dubious honour of being one of the top states for threats against election workers.