2/ By far the most viral of these claims is the video of officials in Detroit papering up/boarding up the windows inside their polling center in Michigan. This, admittedly, was a bizarre sight. But was 100% explainable and was the right thing to do.
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3/ Officials rightly blocked the windows when crowds came inside and began trying to film ballots. Poll watchers EXCEEDED THE LIMIT INSIDE. This is not legal - you can’t barge in and film who ppl voted for. OF COURSE, there were *134 REPUBLICAN POLL WATCHERS* inside the room.
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4/ There were also 134 Democrats, 134 independents. That’s bc every election/polling place has a balanced and assigned number of watchers present at polling locations. Here’s the local story explaining it. NEXThttps://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/tcf-center-challengers-detroit-michigan/6164715002/ …
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5/ Similarly, there have been LOTS of stories of “Republican poll watchers” not being allowed into polling places. This is all silly, and worth remembering this Detroit story. Being a poll watcher DOES NOT MEAN you can just walk into any polling station…
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6/ There’s a process to ensure an even number of partisan watchers are signed up (like in Detroit) and inside polling places. Election officials don’t (and shouldn’t) allow any old swarm of watchers into their polling place. That would ruin the balance of the watchers.
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7/ It appears some certified* Trump-supporting poll watchers filmed themselves trying to enter polling places and when denied made a scene. That’s how the system is supposed to work. Any election official can explain this. *Assuming they're certified, still stupid. NEXT.
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8/ One of the most popular of these claims is a video purporting to show a 118-year-old named William Bradley who voted despite dying in 1984. I’m going to share video of a viral tweet so you can see it, then explain what’s happening:https://twitter.com/fleccas/status/1324216584219623424 …
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9/ Michigan’s secretary of state already responded to this claim, pointing out that ballots of voters who have died are rejected outright, so this bizarre scene (even if it were real!) would NEVER COUNT IN A MICHIGAN ELECTION. SoS statement is here:https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/2020/11/05/did-a-dead-118-year-old-man-vote-absentee-in-michigan-state-says-no/ …
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10/ In Michigan, this is even true if someone dies *between the time they sent in their ballot and Election Day* How much does that suck? The idea someone who died in 1984 would have their ballot counted is absurd.
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11/ Alternatively, it's also possible William Bradley is real and his birthday is simply wrong on the Michigan voter website. Instead of 1902, he could be born in 1992 — a one-digit typo. This happens all the time. A clerk will be checking the ballot and registration records.
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12/ It’s ALSO true, as election expert
@electproject pointed out, that some states use “1900” or “1/1/1” as codes when they moved from paper to electronic records to signify a bday wasn’t available. Something like that could be at play here.https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1324358555055640579 …Show this thread -
13/ Regardless, if this person is actually dead, their vote won’t count. If the bday is entered wrong, it will be resolved by a local clerk when the vote is audited. The video is real, the voter fraud claim is fake. Trump is losing Michigan by 150k votes. NEXT
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14/ The other popular one is the “130k votes in Michigan” that Biden got all at once. This was a data uploading error on ElectionDeskHQ. The conservative who originally posted this conspiracy apologized and deleted is tweet, but it took off before he could stop it.
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15/ Ya know the whole "lie makes it around the world twice before truth gets its pants on" -- yeah, that happened here. Even tho the original guy to tweet it retracted, story has blown up. Local paper wrote it up here:https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/michigan-election-ballots-mail-absentee-hour-count-update/6161367002/ …
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16/ NEXT. Some people alleged that “Wisconsin had more votes than registered voters,” PROOF OF ELECTION FRAUD! This was, amazingly, idiots unaware that Wisconsin has same-day voter registration. Incredible voter fraud fail. But it went viral. Story here:https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/fact-check-wisconsin-did-not-have-more-votes-than-registered-voters/6166062002/ …
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17/ NEXT. Relatedly, many conservative commentators have mixed up “eligible voters” (total ppl who can vote) and “registered voters” (registrations) including WSJ’s Kim Strassel. This caused serious confusion. Tim Alberta rightly calls Strassel out here:https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1324192810275360773 …
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18/ THE LEFT HAS ALSO BEEN GUILTY. Yes, you libs! Viral posts about 300k ballots going missing were TOTALLY misleading and untrue. Vice reporter Aaron Gordon is incredible on the USPS beat - you can follow him here (
@A_W_Gordon) and read his story ab here:https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dppad/why-the-post-offices-last-minute-ballot-crisis-isnt-as-dire-as-it-seems …Show this thread -
19/ NEXT. Many on the right were thrown off when they went to bed at 2am with Trump well-positioned in the midwest and woke up at 6am with Trump headed for defeat in Wisconsin. Quickly, allegations spread of Dems “finding” 100k absentee ballots. Nonsense.
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20/ The jump occurred after the City of Milwaukee, heavily Democratic, reported its first wave of absentee ballot results (xtra Democratic). When they came in, Bidens numbers spiked by more than 100,000. The votes were reported together bc Milwaukee has a central count location.
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21/ That means they don't get reported from the polling place. I watched live on CNN as election officials were escorted from the polling place to the count location to drop off ballots. Then watched the numbers come in. It was pretty cool. Story here:https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/wisconsin-didnt-find-ballots-stop-count-voter-fraud-claims-untrue-politifact/6165435002/ …
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22/ Similarly, posts went viral about a “pause” and “dump” in Milwaukee where ballots were “found.” This is a lie. Counting never stopped. The count was done and the pause was the time it took to get them from the polling place to the central counting location. NEXT.
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23/ Team Trump has also been at work. In Nevada, they dragged out an elderly blind woman who said her ballot was taken in the mail and she couldn’t vote. This seemed like an isolated incident. Here is a vid they shared. https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1324395675736559616 …
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24/ BUT HOLD ONTO YOUR HATS. Funny thing about her: election officials looked into her case, and she had actually submitted two ballots - with matching signatures. Seems like she actually voted twice, which is... illegal. Sweet! Local story here:https://www.8newsnow.com/i-team/i-team-im-not-going-to-have-this-taken-away-from-me-blind-woman-from-nevada-told-she-already-voted/ …
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25/ Some conspiracies are being spread by mainstream outlets. NY Post alleged that Pittsburgh election staff “took the day off” with 35k votes to go. This is true in the most literal sense but totally misleading.https://nypost.com/2020/11/05/election-staff-take-day-off-in-pa-county-with-35k-ballots-left/ …
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26/ The counting was paused (in Allegheny) bc they cannot legally count remaining ballots there without the convening of a special committee that comes together tomorrow. Those votes are unlikely to be the difference, anyway. Biden will win by a healthy margin in PA. NEXT
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27/ As you might expect, Project Veritas is at it too. They are claiming to have a USPS whistleblower who says late mail-in ballots were being postmarked inaccurately and sent so they’d make the deadline for Election Day. This case is interesting and open for debate.
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28/ The allegations themselves are very small scale (from one location in MI), and the whistleblower is totally anonymous, even his voice. PV is known for partisan shenanigans and claims a “special agent with the office of inspector general at USPS” is investigating the claims.
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29/ If that’s true, we’ll know for sure soon what happened. My guess is we don’t hear much more about this case of fraud, because I’m not at all convinced USPS is actually investigating it. But hey — PV hits the mark sometimes, so we’ll see!
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30/ NEXT. Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit who has been exiled from some Trump circles for her fringe views, claimed to have “Michigan poll observer Matthew Seely” describe how GOP watchdogs were not allowed to enter a location. Same story as Detroit, but...
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31/ This one is funnier. Seely is not just a “poll watcher” — he’s also a Trump-loving political operative who claimed “The Squad” was proof we have “forgotten 9/11” last year. Here’s a 2019 story on him if you want a laugh/cry:https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2019/09/11/trump-loving-grosse-pointe-shores-councilman-posts-9-11-meme-targeting-the-squad …
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