PD Editorial: A tall tale about election fraud

“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect ...”

— Jonathan Swift

Three centuries passed between that sage observation by the Irish author Jonathan Swift and the discovery of a heap of discarded envelopes in a dumpster at the Sonoma County landfill.

It took just a few hours for a tweet that inaccurately described the envelopes as mail-in ballots and implied that they might be evidence of chicanery in the November election to be quoted or otherwise shared about 20,000 times on Twitter alone.

“SHOCKING,” began the original post by Elijah Schaffer of BlazeTV, a conservative media outlet, who concluded, “Big if true.”

As Schaffer’s missive echoed across the Twitterverse, the “if” began to fade in favor of “big.” Along the social media daisy chain, Schaffer’s reference to “mail-in ballots” became “unopened ballots,” “seven were for Trump,” “workers quickly try to cover them up,” and “no one views the upcoming election as legitimate.” In some circles, Schaffer’s conjecture quickly became confirmation of President Donald Trump’s spurious claims about election rigging and mail ballot fraud.

Among those who shared Schaffer’s post was Donald Trump Jr., who has 5.6 million Twitter followers.

But there was a problem with Schaffer’s apparent scoop. It was wrong.

And, by all appearances, Schaffer made little if any effort to determine if the emailed photos he received showed ballots, or had anything at all to do with this year’s election, before making his Twitter post.

Perhaps he never learned the lesson taught to generations of young journalists who learned their trade at Chicago’s City News Bureau: If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

Then again, we’re inclined to suspect that Schaffer, who hosts a podcast called “Slightly Offensive,” was more interested in controversy than veracity.

The Press Democrat’s Guy Kovner checked the facts and learned that the photos didn’t show a cache of discarded ballots at the landfill. Instead, the photos sent to Schaffer showed empty envelopes, and they were from the 2018 election.

State law requires election materials to be retained for 22 months. When the clock ran out, following its usual practice, the Sonoma County elections office discarded the pale blue envelopes. They also threw away leftover ballots and voter information guides from the 2018 election, but those were shredded before going into the trash.

That should be a lesson for Sonoma County Clerk-Recorder Deva Marie Proto, whose duties include supervising elections. For the rest of us, this episode is a reminder about the large volume of misleading and unverified social media posts masquerading as news.

If you’re wondering why the county doesn’t reuse the envelopes, the answer is security. The envelopes have bar codes associated with individual voters and specific ballot types — they vary depending on such things as legislative, city and school district boundaries, with 100 or more combinations common for a general election in Sonoma County.

The Election Integrity Partnership, an internet watchdog group that includes researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington, said Schaffer’s post exemplifies efforts to mislead voters. Twitter apparently agreed. The post was taken down by the end of the day Friday, but the story already had been spread far and wide.

As for any actual votes cast for or against Donald Trump, Sonoma County won’t be mailing ballots for the 2020 election until next week.

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.