Election officials are reportedly rescanning early voting ballots in Fairfax County, Virginia, where former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, is trailing his Republican rival, Glenn Youngkin, despite promising to make results public by 8 p.m., according to TownHall.
Fairfax County is Virginia's most populous county, with 1,145,670 residents, according to the most recent U.S. Census data.
An official in Fairfax County speaking on condition of anonymity told Newsmax there was an issue with a data transfer.
"What I understand is that the data got wiped when they tried to upload it from another machine," the person told Newsmax.
"Basically, we’re still trying to figure it out ourselves but what we’re hearing… that when they pulled thumb drives from some of the early voting machines to put them in the other machine to do the tally, they were empty or wiped. So now they are going back to try to correct that… somehow."
Former President Donald Trump roasted election officials for the delay.
''Early indications are that MAGA voters are turning out big for Glenn Youngkin, let's see what happens,'' Trump said in a statement released by his Save America PAC. ''All eyes are on Fairfax, why the delay?''
Youngkin leads McAuliffe, 55.1% to 44.2%, in the latest update with approximately 63% of all votes counted. In Fairfax County, early and absentee results so far are roughly 75%-25% for McAuliffe.
Newsmax, though, projected Youngkin the winner.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told WAVY News he's not ''worried'' about Youngkin's lead, saying there's still a lot of early votes to be counted and that those tend to lean blue.
Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich earlier Tuesday suggested that if the bellwether race comes down to a narrow margin of victory, Democrats would try to ''steal it.''
"First of all, if it's really tight, they'll steal it, so you can't afford to have a really tight election," Gingrich told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "You have to win by a big enough margin that they can't steal it."
He also said a win for Youngkin would amount to a political ''earthquake'' as the race between the two has been viewed as a barometer for the Democratic Party's popularity under President Joe Biden ahead of next year's midterm elections.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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