INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Trump Votes Ripped Up By Ohio Post Office Worker? Vote For Hillary Clinton On November 8 Using #PresidentialElection Hashtag? [Hoax]

By Paula Mooney
Published on: 01:33 PST, Oct 18, 2016

As the presidential election draws to a close, viral hoaxes seem to be the order of the day. Unlike the Facebook hoax that claimed Facebook was making all Facebook users’ photos and private messages public on October 18 — as reported by the Inquisitr — these new hoaxes involve politics. One hoax claimed that an Ohio post office worker was having fun ripping up votes that were absentee ballots mailed to the post office for Trump. As reported by Snopes, however, this is a big fake hoax.

With Ohio being a very important swing state, the hoax about an Ohio postal worker ripping up Trump mail-in votes was par for the course to go viral. However, several things were wrong with the story.

[Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]

First off, the origin of the hoax about Trump ballots being ripped up by someone supposedly working for a post office in Columbus, Ohio, was solely based on a tweet from raandy @randygdub on Twitter. It’s a Twitter profile that could have a fake name — and offers no valid proof of the person actually working for the post office in Ohio.

“I love working at the post office in Columbus, Ohio and ripping up absentee ballots that vote for Trump.”

Perhaps because the tweet seemed to validate Trump’s claims that the presidential election was rigged is the reason why the tweet went viral — without folks checking much into the other jokes and tweets that emerged from the same Twitter account. The Twitter account is currently tweeting about all the conservative news outlets taking his or her tweet as Gospel.

Snopes noted that mail-in ballots in Ohio are enclosed within two envelopes — so the Ohio absentee ballots would not have made it easy for an Ohio post office worker to determine which ones were Trump votes versus Hillary Clinton votes.

Meanwhile, that hasn’t stopped people from complaining to the U.S. Post Office on Twitter, with the postal service saying that the tweets with claims of ripping up Trump ballots likely didn’t come from a postal employee.

[Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]

Meanwhile, the Twitter joke about ripping up Trump ballots isn’t the only hoax being spread across social media concerning the presidential election.

There are also claims that Trump supporters tried to trick voters in Pennsylvania by telling Clinton supporters that a hashtag would be a valid way of voting for Hillary online.

As reported by Snopes, there’s a false rumor going around that people in Pennsylvania can vote by including the hashtag #PresidentialElection on Twitter or Facebook between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on November 8th — as well as including the word Hillary in their social media posts.

This is not true. There is no online voting in Pennsylvania — and there’s no hashtag voting at all.

Facebook users like Jeff Coon posted the fake photo on October 16, along with a warning that explained to people how to actually vote for the presidential candidate of their choice.

“THIS IS NOT TRUE! Just found this on a McGinty ad comment thread by someone looking to suppress turnout. This is what an ACTUAL rigged election looks like. You have to leave your home to vote, folks. This ain’t American Idol.

“If you don’t know where your polling place is, simply go to Google and type ‘Where do I vote?’ You can then enter your address and will be given your polling location. And, I’ll bet most of you already know anyway. But, just in case.”

[Featured Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]

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