Trump claimed mail-in ballots were found in a river. There were no ballots and also no river.
President Trump is going to have to find another allegation of voter fraud to exaggerate.
Trump has falsely tried to claim mail-in ballots are rife with fraud, particularly focusing on an example from Wisconsin where some mail-in ballots were allegedly found in a river. But as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, there was no river involved in the incident Trump keeps talking about, and also no ballots.
Over the past few weeks, Trump has repeatedly mentioned eight mail-in ballots "found in a river." That included at Tuesday night's presidential debate, where the singular river became "creeks" and also "river," and some of the found ballots "just happened to have the name 'Trump'" on them, Trump claimed. A reporter asked White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany about the claims on Thursday, but she wouldn't answer who was allegedly doing it or what river was being mentioned, instead bring up an incident where mail was found in a ditch in Wisconsin.
Even if Trump and McEnany were just mistaken about the body of water, their claim of voter fraud was also off base. The director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission confirmed Thursday that the mail found in a ditch outside Appleton, Wisconsin, "did not include any Wisconsin ballots." She added that she didn't know if ballots from other states were found.
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