An ABC News station mistakenly declared that Kamala Harris had won the battleground state of Pennsylvania days before election day.
WNEP-TV, an ABC affiliate in Scranton, Pennsylvania, broadcast that Ms Harris had won 52 percent of the votes to Donald Trump’s 47 percent on Sunday during a Formula One race.
The station explained that the message had been mistakenly aired while testing its equipment ahead of polling day, but the blunder has fuelled conspiracy theories that the election is being rigged.
The “result” flashed up on TV screens on Sunday during the Mexico City Grand Prix, showing that Ms Harris had taken 3,293,712 votes to Trump’s 2,997,793, with 100 percent of precincts reporting.
If that were repeated on Nov 5, it could seal the election for the vice-president. Pennsylvania has the largest number of electoral college votes of any swing state, and has been won by every victorious presidential candidate since 2008.
WNEP-TV said the results had been “randomly generated” during a test ahead of election day and came up on the screen in “error”.
“Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did,” it said in a statement to the Daily Mail.
“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.”
The broadcaster continued: “The numbers were not reflective of any actual vote count. Pennsylvania law does not allow mail-in ballots to be taken out of their envelopes until 7 am on election day, and no votes of any kind will be counted in Pennsylvania until after the polls close at 8 pm.
“WNEP regrets the error and apologizes for any confusion. We have taken steps to ensure that it does not happen again.”
Pennsylvania has already become a focus for unproven claims of vote-rigging ahead of election day.
