This is rich; NPR is reporting that “right-wing” election fraud conspiracies have failed to gain significant traction online after Tuesday’s election. Conservatives are still waiting for them to count the votes in Nevada and Arizona … is that a fraud conspiracy? Nevada has said it could be November 18 before the results are finalized. Twenty percent of voting machines in Maricopa County didn’t work, but we were assured all votes would be taken downtown and counted. They ran out of paper in Pennsylvania and Texas. But no, no conspiracy theories have taken off.
But let’s talk about “left-wing” election conspiracies. On Election Day afternoon, even before the results had come in, an MSNBC guest assured us that the results in Georgia —where Stacey Abrams lost again — were not to be trusted, as voter suppression there was off the charts … even worse than it was in 2018. “We can’t say that whatever happens tonight is a fair and equitable election,” said election denier Jason Johnson on cable news.
Oh, and speaking of MSNBC, Rachel Maddow said that the far-right in Arizona had been using open-carry as political intimidation, without providing a single concrete example. Sounds like another of her conspiracy theories to us.
So far, right-wing election fraud conspiracies have failed to gain significant traction online. https://t.co/LhIuLjpagK
— NPR (@NPR) November 10, 2022
NPR, you suck so hard. Huo Jingnan and Danielle Kaye write:
After filtering out keywords commonly used by news media reporting on conspiracy theories, NPR has identified just over 200,000 tweets and retweets on the subject, with the most influential tweet getting nearly 60,000 interactions — which are not huge numbers for Twitter.
In a separate incident, former President Donald Trump posted on his right-wing social network Truth Social on Tuesday afternoon calling for protests in Detroit over voters allegedly being turned away at polling places.
…
Emma Steiner, a disinformation analyst with the government watchdog group Common Cause, says election deniers are scrambling to find effective narratives for spreading disinformation about the midterm elections.
“Because [GOP] candidates like Dr. [Mehmet] Oz in Pennsylvania and Tudor Dixon in Michigan have already conceded, that makes it a little more difficult for supporters to push claims of election fraud,” Steiner told reporters Wednesday.
NPR will continue to monitor the spread of conspiracies as votes are still being counted for contentious races in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.
So because Republicans who lost actually conceded, there’s not a lot of red meat of conspiracy theorists. But they’ll keep looking.
This article is not odd or suspicious in tone at all.
— Regan McNeil (@Ripley202) November 10, 2022
I figured 2020 was a pandemic anomaly, but here we are in 2022, and they can’t count votes.
Truly shameful.
— LadyBird Justice (@LadybirdJustice) November 10, 2022
Somehow they did it very efficiently in the centuries preceding this one, with significantly less technology.
— Regan McNeil (@Ripley202) November 10, 2022
I still can’t believe that our money is funding your propaganda. Somehow this must be stopped in the near future and you all should be working as coat checkers.
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) November 10, 2022
Geeez why would someone write an article about “fraud conspiracies” that “aren’t gaining significant traction” unless these claims were 100% true and they were trying to get ahead of the story?
— SEAN! (@seanyyvuitton) November 10, 2022
One would think that journalisms' initial approach would be to find out if there were any legitimacy to the claims first. Then broach the subject of it gaining traction or not.
— Regan McNeil (@Ripley202) November 10, 2022
And left-wing propaganda agencies have failed to question why key election vote counting takes so long and always favors the left-wing party.
— Stephen Cascioppo (@SCascioppo) November 10, 2022
Looking forward to the defunding of this Democrat branch of propaganda media. NPR should be shut down day one.
— Deplorable Doug Smith🇺🇸$8 (@JeepsifuSmith) November 10, 2022
So far, left-wing propaganda spreader @NPR have failed to report real news but succeeded at spreading propaganda and division
— Nikki Su (@NikkiSu8) November 10, 2022
To call every day working class people far right who love their country and who want to know that elections are free and fair is just ridiculous.
No matter our politics, we should all want that.
Why don’t you?
— I am Mavis (@puddinchops1) November 10, 2022
They’ll continue monitoring for “right-wing” election conspiracies in Nevada and Arizona as they continue to count votes, though.
***
Editor’s Note: Republican voters deserve answers and accountability for the failed red wave.
Related:
MSNBC contributor already blaming ‘voter suppression’ in Georgia, denying election result https://t.co/QbA1qA8z6d
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 9, 2022
Join the conversation as a VIP Member