LANSING, Mich. — While running a routine test of their elections systems, WWMT News in Kalamazoo, Michigan, accidentally published their test data for the upcoming Aug. 2 primary election.
"In this scenario, a news station was running a test of that page, and they accidentally made the page live. The images that were captured and shared of that accidental sharing of the life page, which to my understanding only lasted a few hours, and it was corrected very quickly," Tracy Wimmer, director of media relations for Michigan's Department of State, said.
Even though the test was only live for a few hours, Wimmer says this mistake has been used as a tool to spread misinformation and discredit the security of Michigan's election process.
"Sometimes there's human error, sometimes accidents happen, and that's going to happen. But there are lots of systems in place to correct those things. And this was ultimately human error," Wimmer said. "It was an accident, somebody accidentally made a test page that they were running with made-up numbers go live."
The Michigan Department of State posted about the mishap on Twitter Monday morning.
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