A substantial portion of the country already harbors doubts about the integrity of U.S. elections and a local station in Pennsylvania just made the situation even worse for some of them.

On Sunday, a local ABC affiliate in Northern Pennsylvania briefly aired what appeared to be the state's final election results, which showed Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris defeating Republican nominee former President Donald Trump, the New York Post reported.

The station swiftly apologized and explained that the supposed results were part of a pre-election "test" that had been broadcast in "error," but some skeptics on social media claimed it was evidence of a rigged election that had been mistakenly leaked to the public early.

Purported election results aired during Formula 1 race

On Sunday, while ABC and its affiliates were airing the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix race, a banner popped up on the bottom of the screen of local affiliate WNEP-TV's broadcast that seemed to show the final election results in the Keystone State.

The banner showed that with 100% of precincts reporting, VP Harris had won the state over former President Trump by five points, 52-47%, with around 3.3 million votes for the Democrat and about 3 million votes for the Republican.

Social media erupted with critics claiming things like "the cheat is on" or that ABC was part of the "Democrat machine" that was rigging the election.

One user observed, "If the same graphics pop up after November 5th, with the same percentages & the same vote count, it’ll be EXTREMELY suspicious. And the media wonders why nobody trusts them?"

Local station apologizes for "error" that led to "confusion" and conspiracy theories

The Daily Mail reported that the local ABC station quickly released a statement to apologize for its "error" and explain what had occurred and why people shouldn't be worried about the integrity of the election that is set to be held in less than a week.

"Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did," the local affiliate said. "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 numbers were not reflective of any actual vote count," the statement continued. "Pennsylvania law does not allow mail-in ballots to be taken out of their envelopes until 7:00 a.m. on Election Day, and no votes of any kind will be counted in Pennsylvania until after the polls close at 8:00 p.m."

"WNEP regrets the error and apologizes for any confusion. We have taken steps to ensure that it does not happen again," the station added.

Polls show Trump winning Pennsylvania

If there is any consolation that may assuage the doubts of skeptics it is that the erroneously aired "test" results that purported to show VP Harris winning Pennsylvania by five points are wildly off-base in relation to what polling has shown for the Keystone State throughout the election cycle.

RealClearPolling's average for Pennsylvania currently shows former President Trump ahead of Harris by 0.8 points, 48.4-47.6%, which is bad news for the Democrat, particularly given that her predecessors, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, led Trump by 4.3 and 3.5 points in 2020 and 2016, respectively.

Consider also that despite those apparent leads in the polls just days before the election, President Biden ultimately won Pennsylvania by just 80,000 votes, or around 1%, while Clinton lost the state to Trump by a similarly close margin.