IF A TREE FALLS

Martha MacCallum

The old saying, “What happens if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it?” could apply to the pseudo controversy Fox News has stirred up over so-called “dead voters” in Michigan. Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum claimed on August 16 that absentee ballots from deceased people cast in the August 4 primary were evidence of “intentional” fraud. What she failed to tell viewers, or perhaps understand, was that the votes were cast by mail and then the voters had died. The totally false narrative was then picked up by First Son Donald Trump Jr. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office released preliminary data on August 14 showing that over 10,000 absentee ballots were rejected by local clerks in the election, including 846 ballots that had been cast by voters who subsequently died before election day. Some were rejected because they lacked signatures on the exterior of the envelope; some people had moved and were no longer registered in the jurisdiction, among other reasons, Benson’s office said. While the rejected ballots because people had died accounted for less than .03 percent of the total votes cast in the primary, Trump Jr. tweeted, “The media: NOTHING TO SEE HERE!!! It was only about 8% of the votes cast.” Guess math wasn’t his best subject in school.