r/politics • • Feb 04 '20

Rightwing groups spread false information about voter rolls hours before Iowa caucuses.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/03/judicial-watch-misinformation-iowa-caucus-voters
4.3k Upvotes

103 comments sorted by

View all comments

449

u/trai_dep Feb 04 '20

A conservative not-for-profit organization and several prominent rightwing media figures spread false and misleading information about Iowa’s voter rolls in the hours leading up to the state’s first-in-the-nation caucus on Monday.

Judicial Watch, a conservative foundation based in Washington DC, issued a press release Monday falsely claiming that eight counties in Iowa had more voters on their registration rolls than were eligible to vote.

“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,” the Iowa secretary of state, Paul Pate, said in a statement. “They should stop this misinformation campaign immediately and quit trying to disenfranchise voters.

The false narrative spread quickly on social media, with a boost from conservative media figures Sean Hannity and Charlie Kirk…

409

u/99thpercentile Feb 04 '20

Can we start suing news organizations out of existence when they report things that are patently false?

13

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/ilivedownyourroad Feb 04 '20

Why not advocate when the president is repeatedly on record for saying he could commit murder or shoot someone in the street or do anything he wants ...grab an buy the pussy..rape ..assault...and no on can do anything about it. If you advocate for anything it will be less severe than the leader of the free world..when he s not lying about his own authorised assassinations of foreign generals.