Fox News has been pushing the myth that over 900 “dead” people voted in South Carolina elections ever since Attorney General Alan Wilson falsely told Fox’s national audience back in January that “we know for a fact” voter fraud is taking place in the Palmetto State. Despite the fact that Wilson’s lie was debunked almost as soon as he uttered it, Republican officials have continued to maintain that voter fraud is an “unspoken truth” in South Carolina — without any evidence whatsoever.
This weekend, the GOP’s favorite “news” network promulgated the false claim even further by airing an hour-long special called “Stealing Your Vote.” The program was essentially a 60-minute propaganda piece for Republican ballot suppression initiatives such as South Carolina’s discriminatory voter ID law, even though the bogus “dead voters” scam was the only specific incident mentioned which could have been prevented by such unconstitutional measures.
During the Fox special, Republican Gov. Nikki Haley was shown saying, “Let’s be clear, I don’t want dead people voting in the state of South Carolina.” But the governor isn’t being clear at all (which is usually the case when she begins a sentence with that phrase), because it has been demonstrated time and time again over the past few months that there’s no evidence suggesting voter fraud has occurred in South Carolina — not even a little bit, according to the state Elections Commission.
After Gov. Haley’s Department of Motor Vehicles director first made the bogus claim back in January in front of a House subcommittee, Elections Commission Director Marci Andino showed that Republicans’ supposedly “dead” voters were perfectly fine:
Reviewing the 207 contested votes from the 2010 election, the commission found that 106 were clerical errors by poll workers, 56 were errors by the DMV, 32 were cases of people being credited as voting when they hadn’t, and three were absentee ballots cast by voters who died before Election Day. The commission said they had “insufficient information” regarding the final ten contested votes, but found no evidence of fraud.
Attorney General Wilson has walked back his statement about knowing “for a fact” that voter fraud is a problem in South Carolina, but has refused to retract the false claim or apologize for impugning the integrity of the state’s voting system. Meanwhile, Republicans from state Rep. Alan Clemmons to the governor herself continue to repeat the myth — with the enthusiastic assistance of Fox News.
Luckily, Fox has provided an email address where viewers can send in tips about supposed voter fraud in their area. We urge you to drop them a line at voterfraud@foxnews.com and let them know what you think about their bogus coverage.
