Pennsylvania ABC Affiliate Station Apologizes for Airing ‘Test’ 2024 Election Results

Election equipment and supplies that will be distributed to polling locations in Bucks County are seen at a warehouse on Oct. 29, 2024, in Doylestown, Pa., Hannah Beier/Getty Images

A local ABC affiliate station in Pennsylvania apologized this week after “test results” for the Nov. 5 presidential election “mistakenly appeared” on Sunday during a broadcast.

In a statement published on its website on Sunday, WNEP-TV said the numbers showed up on the channel’s broadcast of the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix on Sunday evening and were not “reflective of any actual vote count.”

“Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did,” the channel said, adding the numbers were “randomly generated test results” that were distributed to news organizations to “make sure their equipment is working properly in advance of election night.”

The station said it regrets the error and also apologized for any confusion it may have caused.

“We have taken steps to ensure that it does not happen again,” the statement said.

A screenshot and video footage of the Sunday broadcast from WNEP showed Vice President Kamala Harris defeating former President Donald Trump. 3.2 million ballots were tallied for Harris and 2.9 million for Trump, with 100 percent reporting.

This week, social media platform X users were sharing the image and video of the results, claiming that it’s a sign there are efforts to try to fix the election.

A headline for a New York Post article published on Wednesday, meanwhile, declared that “ABC mistakenly” aired the erroneous election figures. However, there is no evidence indicating that ABC or any of its other local affiliate stations aired those numbers. The Epoch Times contacted ABC News for comment.

Under Pennsylvania state law, mail-in ballots cannot be taken out of their envelopes until 7 a.m. on Election Day, which is next Tuesday. No votes of any kind can be counted until after the polls close on 8 p.m. that day.

An aggregate of recent polls taken in Pennsylvania provided by RealClearPolitics shows Trump up 0.7 percent over Harris in the key battleground state. In 2020, the race was decided by just over 1 percentage point, with election officials certifying the state for President Joe Biden over Trump.

Both Harris and Trump have spent an extensive amount of time in Pennsylvania during the 2024 election cycle.

Earlier Wednesday, Harris spoke to reporters on the airport tarmac in Harrisburg in a bid to distance her campaign from a remark made by Biden a day before about Trump supporters and “garbage.” On Tuesday, Trump made an appearance in Allentown.

In response to a Trump campaign lawsuit seeking a one-day extension for voters to apply in person for a mail-in ballot, a judge agreed to extend the voting option in a suburban Philadelphia county where long lines on the final day led to complaints that voters were being disenfranchised by an unprepared election office.

Judge Jeffrey Trauger said in a one-page order that Bucks County voters who want to apply for an early mail ballot now have until Friday. The narrowly divided county, which is led by Democrats, is often seen as a political bellwether.

In U.S. history, perhaps the most famous wrong call was in the 1948 presidential election. The Chicago Daily Tribune, now called the Chicago Tribune, published an erroneous banner headline declaring, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” In other words, Thomas Dewey defeated then-incumbent President Harry S. Truman, who had, in fact, won the race. A smiling Truman was famously photographed holding a paper with the erroneous headline.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.