February 3, 2020

Republicans Are Spreading Voter Fraud Disinformation in an Election They’re Not Even Running In

“Stop this misinformation campaign immediately,” says Iowa’s secretary of state, a Republican.

Judicial Watch, a conservative group with a history of putting out false information, put out a quickly debunked report alleging voter fraud in Iowa on Monday. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Conservative groups are trying to peddle conspiracy claims of voter fraud to undermine an election that doesn’t even involve Republicans.

Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group, put out a report on Monday claiming that “Eight Iowa counties have more voter registrations than citizens old enough to register.”

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, who is a pro-voter-ID law conservative, refuted the claim on Twitter and linked to Iowa’s own numbers debunking Judicial Watch’s report. 

“My office has told this organization, and others who have made similar claims, that their data regarding Iowa is deeply flawed and their false claims erode voter confidence in elections,” Pate said in a statement. “They should stop this misinformation campaign immediately and quit trying to disenfranchise Iowa voters.”

Regardless, Judicial Watch’s claim has gone massively viral in the right-wing internet community. The president of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton, went viral with his tweet of the report, picking up over 6,000 retweets. Fitton also put out his own statement on Monday night in which he stood by his debunked claims of voter fraud. 

But it was right-wing internet personality Charlie Kirk and Fox News host Sean Hannity who ensured that Judicial Watch’s disinformation reached peak virality. Hannity’s tweet of the report was retweeted almost 2,000 times by his 4.5 million followers, and Kirk’s tweet of the information without any citation was retweeted over 40,000 times to his 15 million followers.

Judicial Watch has a long track record of pushing incorrect information, including  a false voter fraud claim in 2017.  The group has also pushed other baseless hoaxes, including one about ISIS setting up a terrorist camp in Mexico and a lie about the Department of Justice organizing protests against George Zimmerman, the man who murdered Trayvon Martin.

But voter fraud is a recurring myth favored by right-wingers, and no amount of tsk-tsking and Pinocchio tests from factcheckers have been able to curb its popularity. Julia Carie Wong, a reporter at the Guardian, pointed out that right-wing disinformation sourced to Judicial Watch’s report was traveling much further online than Iowa state’s efforts to debunk it. 

Technology companies are failing to stymie the disinfo’s spread as well. Natalie Martinez, a researcher at MoveOn, noticed that Facebook was letting Judicial Watch advertise its false report, despite the company claiming to have tighter standards that bar pages from advertising false information. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate