Insane Voting Conspiracy Theory Roundup
Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash
We now have conclusive proof that Democratic mail-in ballots assassinated JFK, and the UFOs have been conspiring with Michael Jackson and Samuel L. Jackson (the former, not actually dead; the latter, his secret lover), to cover it up. All we need now is the long-form birth certificate for Hunter Biden (secret Muslim?) before we crack this thing wide open.
None of that’s true (or is that just what they want you to think?), but it has just about as much credibility as the litany of insane conspiracy theories swirling in conservative circles about Trump’s deficit in the vote tallies to Joe Biden.
We don’t know yet who’s going to win. (Nov. 20, 2020, update: we do now know who’s going to win.) But we can at least know a few things. The permeation of “if Trump is losing somewhere, it must mean fraud” theorizing is off the rails.
I have a bad feeling this list is going to get longer by the day.
100,000 Biden votes “appear out of nowhere” in the Midwest.
The claim: “A sudden spike in Biden votes in Wisconsin (over 100,000) must be fraud. How else could that happen?” After random twitter accounts posted graphs of a sudden jump in Biden votes, the rumor-mill started, and this “evidence of fraud” has been shared by millions of accounts.
What actually happened: The bigger counties simply reported their mail-in ballots. That’s it. That’s all.
“[T]he central count facility in Milwaukee completed its tally of the mail-in votes around 3:30 a.m., reporting those all at once. That led to a long-predicted spike in Biden’s favor since Democrats are more likely to use vote absentee and Milwaukee is a heavily Democratic area.”
When a large metro area reports its results, they can come in chunks, just like this, which it not at all abnormal — there’s literally nothing more to it than that.
1.1 Million more mail ballots in Pennsylvania were tallied than actually returned.
The claim: The President claimed in a tweet that over 1.1 million votes in Pennsylvania were “created out of thin air,” alleging that 1,126,940 more mail ballots were reported than were actually returned.
What actually happened: the number used for the amount of mail ballots sent out is from the primary election that happened months ago, not the general election. For the general election, Pennsylvania sent out over 3 million absentee ballots for the general election, and the number of returned ballots tallied was less than that — meaning zero indications anything abnormal took place. (It’s hard to believe the people spreading this conspiracy theory didn’t know they were using figures from the WRONG ELECTION.)
More votes cast in Wisconsin than registered voters.
The claim: Wisconsin’s voter turnout was 101% of the number of registered voters, resulting in evidence of fraud — how else would there be more votes than registered voters?
What actually happened: Wisconsin allows for same day voter registration. So, the number of registered voters reflected on November 2, will by definition be far lower than the number of registered voters by the end of Election Day — thousands of same day registrants means a surge in registered voters on the final day. Election officials have debunked this claim, and official data reflected the total number of votes cast and counted in Wisconsin “was 3,297,199 as of about 1 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 4 — fewer than the number of registered voters in the state as of Nov. 1,” as discussed here.
Republican poll watchers “illegally banned” in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
The claim: In Pennsylvania, Republican poll watchers are being unlawfully kept out of the polling sites. This must be evidence the Democrats are trying to hide fraud.
What actually happened: This is a lie. Despite the viral posts, rumors, and splatter on bottom-of-the-barrel conservative “news” outlets, it’s clear that this was not happening. Not only did local officials rebut it, when the Trump campaign went to court, “Trump campaign lawyers admitted that there were Republican poll watchers, which was in direct conflict and contradiction of what the president was claiming in his falsehoods during that news conference yesterday.”
There have also been isolated incidents of certified poll watchers being mistakenly excluded, in error — but nothing beyond individual cases, not on party lines, and not without correction.
Another source of confusion taken advantage of by bad-faith actors is the difference between official and unofficial poll watchers. Though the specific laws vary by state, unofficial poll observers from any campaign are not allowed at the voting sites. So, if a Biden supporter or Trump supporter sought entry for that purpose, that person would indeed be turned away — but merely out of enforcing these regulations that have existed for years. So if a person claimed to be “barred from poll watching,” the response is ask whether the pre-existing laws already barred entry.
Blocking windows at ballot centers.
The claim: In Detroit the ballot counters blocked the windows to the room. This is evidence they were concealing fraudulent activities.
What actually occurred:
“Some — but not all — windows were covered, because poll workers seated just inside those windows expressed concerns about people outside the center photographing and filming them and their work,” Garcia told CNN Business. “Only the media is allowed to take pictures inside the counting place, and people outside the center were not listening to requests to stop filming poll workers and their paperwork.”
…
“Hundreds of challengers from both parties were inside the central counting board all afternoon and all evening; dozens of reporters were in the room too,” Garcia said. “At all times, people outside the center could see in through windows that were further away from counting board work spaces.”
Biden suddenly gets 138,000 votes in Michigan with 0 going to Trump.
The claim: “On Wednesday, reporting showed results in Michigan including a sudden 138,000 result all going to Biden, with none going to Trump. This is statistically impossible and obvious fraud.”
What actually happened: Little known election data company Decision Desk HQ reported the disputed “jump” in Biden’s vote total. Less than an hour later, the company lowered the tally explaining, “This morning there was a clerical error in the Shiawassee, MI county presidential data…. Once we identified the error, we cleared the erroneous data and updated it with the correct data as provided by officials.” In summary, this was a typo that was immediately corrected, and is no longer part of any tally — much less an official government tally that could actually determine official results.
Sharpie-gate.
The claim: Trump supporters in Arizona claimed they were told to fill out ballots with Sharpie markers by election workers. Then the ballots were invalidated due to impermissible use of the Sharpies.
What actually happened: Sharpies and felt-tipped pens are permissible, and the votes are counted just like every other ballots, election officials confirmed. There were no ballots invalidated for that reason.
Videos of ballot counters “filling out” ballots.
The claim: Election workers in Pennsylvania were caught on video filling out ballots themselves. This clear evidence of fraud.
What actually happened: The video from the county’s own live stream showed worker transcribing the ballots from damaged ballots to clean ballots, in accordance with regulations — which, ironically, resulted in the damaged ballots being counted rather then disqualified as damaged. (Note: this video only surfaced because the county voluntarily allowed a live stream of the counting process for purposes of maximum transparency.)
Delivery of alleged fraudulent ballot boxes.
The claim: “In a video taken by Kellye SoRelle — a Texas lawyer and member of Lawyers for Trump — a white van is seen parked in front of the location at 2:40 a.m. A box is taken out of the van and placed into a red wagon, which is then pulled inside the facility. SoRelle is raising alarms that the box may have been a ballot box that arrived long after all ballots were expected to have been received at the counting facility.”
What actually happened: The person carrying the box was a news photographer. A reporter with the ABC News affiliate in Detroit confirmed that the box was simply the photographer’s equipment he was bringing into the building for his shift. A. guy. carrying. a. box. was enough to spawn this one.
Suspicious “Spikes” in Biden Vote Tallies.
The claim: Biden received huge spikes in vote tallies, suggesting fraudulent manipulation of the count. The President joined in on spreading this one.
What actually happened: Big counties just reported their votes — and that’s literally it. Nothing unusual took places. Nothing about the vote tallies was unexpected or out of step with prior years. (The bad faith nature of this claim is particularly blatant. This is just counting votes. It’s as suspicious as the score to a basketball continuing to change during the fourth quarter.)
Over 165,000 “uncounted” Republican ballots in Pennsylvania.
The claim: “According to Pennsylvania state data for early and absentee ballot requests, there are roughly 165,000 ballots requested in the names of registered GOP voters that had not been counted as of Nov. 16,” suggesting that these uncounted GOP votes were wrongfully excluded to help Biden win.
What actually happened: This theory is intentionally misleading and offers no evidence of fraud. The uncounted ballots were simply absentee ballots that were requested but never returned — which happens in every election. Notably, the number of unreturned GOP ballots was significantly lower than the number of unreturned Democratic ballot. According to state records, 250,780 registered Democrats requested but did not return absentee ballots, compared to 167,470 Republicans. Nothing about the number or comparative rate of unreturned ballots was abnormal.
Video of Burning Trump ballots in Virginia Beach.
The claim: Eric Trump spread a viral video that “shows an unidentified person putting what appear to be paper ballots in a plastic bag before dousing them with a flammable liquid and setting them on fire. While that person does not specify the location, other candidates that appear on the papers are from Virginia Beach, Virginia.”
What actually happened: It’s a fake. The City of Virginia Beach confirmed that the ballots in the video are sample ballots “noting that the papers in the video do not have barcode markings that appear on all official ballots.”
Photo of “1,000+ mail-in ballots found in a dumpster” in California.
The claim: a widely shared social media post purported to show a photo of thousands of mail-in ballots in a dumpster in California, suggesting that this was evidence of fraud.
What actually happened: According to the county, the photo was a picture of old empty envelopes (not ballots) from the 2018 election, discarded after the fact, as allowed by law. The characterization of the photo as containing (1) ballots that were (2) from the 2020 election was a falsehood.
Videos of ballot stuffing in Flint, Michigan.
The claim: Viral videos circulating the internet allegedly show ballot workers stuffing ballots in Flint, Michigan.
What actually happened: The video is likely genuine — it’s not not from the United States. The video, which has been circulating since 2018, is from Russia’s election two years ago.
Video of election official ripping up Trump ballots.
The claim: a viral video allegedly shows an election worker ripping up a ballot cast for President Trump.
What actually happened: The creator of the video has acknowledged that it was a “joke.” The county provided additional reasons why the video did not appear to be genuine:
No senior staffers who are tasked with hiring election workers recognized him, and the office had no paperwork for the required background check. Moreover, anyone who was associated with vote counting was issued a specialized lanyard, according to the office. In the video, Harrison is not wearing one. The office also said judges who work in vote processing do not wear yellow vests and the location where the video was filmed does not match the El Paso County Clerk and Record’s office or any of their facilities.
Dominion Voting Systems “changing votes” from Trump to Biden.
The claim: The President and his allies are claiming that Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology firm that provided various machines for processing ballots, allegedly “switched votes” from Biden to Trump.
What actually happened: None of that. The President’s own Administration shot down those claims, in a DHS statement, stating, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” The claim had originated in anonymous comments on a pro-Trump blog, and had no substantiation. Experts stated that a small number of reported errors resulted from human input and had been corrected.
Biden having an overwhelming lead in mail ballots is proof of fraud.
The claim: Biden taking a lead through mail ballots is evidence of fraud — the central “everything bad for me is fraud” rallying cry the president and his supporters are clinging to as the count continues to look grim for Trump. I covered that one yesterday.
Wards in Milwaukee having “twice as many votes as registered voters.”
The claim: Various wards in Milwaukee reported far more votes than registered voters — occasionally over 200% of the number of registered voters, clearly indicating fraud.
What actually happened: It’s all fake. The website where the theory began, “Milwaukee City Wire” is part of a conservative network intentionally disguised to look like a local news outlet. Further, local investigation of the reported numbers revealed them to be completely false.
More and More and More and More
This list is getting long (and I’m getting lazier), so I’m just going to start posting links without all the commentary.
(More on that one here.)
To my disappointment, I’ve yet to see a connection between ballot counting and Hillary’s emails. But I’ve got my ear to the ground.
