A participant in the CNN focus group conducted Tuesday during this year's only vice presidential debate says the cable network omitted a strong showing of third-party support.

Justin Smith says participants were asked after the debate ended if they support the ticket led by Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump or a third-party candidate, with 12 indicating third-party support, five backing Clinton and two Trump.

Such a result would not reflect national polling, and Smith wrote on Facebook "once they saw the response," the third party option was dropped in favor of "undecided" -- with the second question asked twice before being aired live, yielding 11 votes for “undecided.”

“As you see a majority here in this room at the University of Richmond still undecided," CNN reporter Pamela Brown told anchor Wolf Blitzer in the segment that aired.

“Interesting stuff,” Blitzer said.

CNN spokespeople would not offer an on-the-record response, but did not refute the description of events offered by Smith.

Brown did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Smith’s Facebook and LinkedIn profiles say he works for a Virginia state agency, and his personal photos seem to match a focus group participant who does not raise his hand.

The allegation slowly crept into the political mainstream on Friday, with journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept tweeting: “Has CNN responded to this? If this account is accurate, it comes pretty close to actual fraud.”

Reason magazine journalist Anthony Fisher on Friday interviewed Smith, who stood by his account. Fisher writes:



Smith says CNN producers told the focus group they would be taping certain questions as segments that might be used by CNN shows the next morning—a common TV news practice. Smith added that each of the questions they had been asked as a group had been taped twice. As a former cable TV news producer myself, I can attest that shooting more "packages" than you're likely to need is standard operating procedure. It's entirely possible that there was no nefarious intent on the part of CNN behind the creation of a taped package which included third party as a voting option.

Smith told Reason that although he posted to Facebook a poster supporting conservative independent candidate Evan McMullin, he was attracted to Constitution Party candidate Darrell Castle -- who’s not on the Virginia ballot -- and may ultimately vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson.