Trump claimed mail-in ballots were found in a river. There were no ballots and also no river.
President Trump is going to have to find another allegation of voter fraud to exaggerate.
Trump has falsely tried to claim mail-in ballots are rife with fraud, particularly focusing on an example from Wisconsin where some mail-in ballots were allegedly found in a river. But as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, there was no river involved in the incident Trump keeps talking about, and also no ballots.
Over the past few weeks, Trump has repeatedly mentioned eight mail-in ballots "found in a river." That included at Tuesday night's presidential debate, where the singular river became "creeks" and also "river," and some of the found ballots "just happened to have the name 'Trump'" on them, Trump claimed. A reporter asked White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany about the claims on Thursday, but she wouldn't answer who was allegedly doing it or what river was being mentioned, instead bring up an incident where mail was found in a ditch in Wisconsin.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Even if Trump and McEnany were just mistaken about the body of water, their claim of voter fraud was also off base. The director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission confirmed Thursday that the mail found in a ditch outside Appleton, Wisconsin, "did not include any Wisconsin ballots." She added that she didn't know if ballots from other states were found.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
Syria’s Kurds: abandoned by their US allyTalking Point Ahmed al-Sharaa’s lightning offensive against Syrian Kurdistan belies his promise to respect the country’s ethnic minorities
-
The ‘mad king’: has Trump finally lost it?Talking Point Rambling speeches, wind turbine obsession, and an ‘unhinged’ letter to Norway’s prime minister have caused concern whether the rest of his term is ‘sustainable’
-
5 highly hypocritical cartoons about the Second AmendmentCartoons Artists take on Kyle Rittenhouse, the blame game, and more
-
EU and India clinch trade pact amid US tariff warSpeed Read The agreement will slash tariffs on most goods over the next decade
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
Maduro pleads not guilty in first US court hearingSpeed Read Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy
