Published 05:50 IST, November 19th 2020
Trump supporters' dead voter conspiracy theory debunked in Michigan post poll results
The dead voter conspiracy theory has been debunked by Michigan officials as Trump supporters failed to prove that widespread irregularities in voting existed.
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Even after Joe Biden was announced as the winner of the US Presidential Election 2020, Trump supporters alleged voter fraud as they falsely claimed dead Michiganders had cast ballots in the November 3 contest. However, the dead voter conspiracy theory has been debunked by Michigan officials as Trump supporters failed to prove that widespread irregularities in voting existed.
In one of the latest instances, 'Students for Trump' founder Ryan Fournier last week declared on social media that he had found definitive proof of widespread voter fraud in Detroit. He pointed to an absentee ballot cast by William Bradley a 118-year-old man who had supposedly died in 1984.
As per The Guardian reports, after checking the allegations it was found that the deceased Bradley never voted and within days, Bradley’s son, also named William Bradley but with a different middle name, informed he had cast the ballot. This was further confirmed by Michigan election officials, who said a clerk had entered the wrong Bradley as having voted.
The false claim that the deceased Bradley had voted in the election is one of a barrage of voter fraud conspiracy theories fired off by Trump supporters across the United States during recent weeks.
So far Bradley was only one of the dozens of allegedly dead Michigan voters who were found to be alive. Trump supporters further pointed to Napoleon Township’s Jane Aiken, who they claimed was born in 1900. They cited an obituary as evidence that she was dead, however, the township’s deputy police chief investigated and found the obituary to be for a different Jane Aiken.
According to CNN examined records for 50 Michiganders, who Trump supporters claimed to be dead voters, and found that 37 were dead and had not voted while five are alive and had voted, and the remaining eight are also alive however didn’t vote.
Several reasons for confusion
Meanwhile, the Michigan secretary of state cited several reasons for confusion. Though election officials across the country removed dead people from voter rolls annually, some are missed and remain as registered voters. On a rare occasion, a worker may accidentally enter a vote by a living person as being cast by a dead person with a similar name.
The voting software in Michigan also requires a birthday for each voter. For instance, if a clerk doesn’t have it, then 1/1/1901 is used as a placeholder until the clerk can find an accurate birthday. As per reports, conspiracy theorists have further pointed to multiple examples of residents with that birthday voting as another possible fraud.
(Image Credits-AP)
05:50 IST, November 19th 2020