GOP governors' misleading claims on new voting restrictions At least 14 states have enacted laws this year that tighten the rules around voting. Hundreds of bills introduced in statehouses would add even more restrictions. And many of the Republican lawmakers sponsoring these proposals are echoing former president Donald Trump's false claims that holes in the nation's election laws allowed the 2020 presidential race to be marred by fraud. Never mind that courts across the country rejected all of Trump's claims. The Fact Checker dug into statements from three of the GOP governors who have signed voting restrictions into law this year: Ron DeSantis of Florida, Brian Kemp of Georgia and Doug Ducey of Arizona. All three twisted the facts to varying degrees, either by mischaracterizing parts of the new law they signed, or by repeating one of Trump's faulty arguments for needing the legislation. DeSantis, for example, claimed that with the new Florida law he signed, "someone can't dump 100,000 votes two or three days" after an election. The law, in other words, addresses a nonexistent problem. DeSantis's statement echoes Trump's false claims of illegal "vote dumps" in 2020 — for which no evidence ever surfaced. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Schumer's sloppy Senate speech On the subject of the new GOP voting restrictions in the states, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had a lot to say this week in a Senate floor speech. "It's what they do in dictatorships: Manipulate the vote instead of counting it accurately," Schumer said. "Georgia, Iowa, Montana, Florida, Alabama, Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas, Arkansas — this is where some of these policies that I just mentioned are now law." Later on in his remarks, he added: "The actions in state legislatures were totally partisan. None of these voter-suppression laws were passed with bipartisan support, not one." But in five of the states Schumer listed, the new voting measures he referred to did pass with bipartisan support. For example, in Kentucky, a Democratic governor signed a Republican bill into law. In Oklahoma, a GOP-led measure also had Democratic sponsors in the legislature. When we reached out to Schumer's staff, we were told quickly that he misspoke in his floor speech and that he would be correcting his remarks for the congressional record, which was done by the next morning. We're not sure how such a glaring error made it into a written speech to begin with, but because of his quick action to set the record straight, Schumer averted a ruling of several Pinocchios. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @AdriUsero) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. |
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