Trump supporters have reportedly formed patrol groups to guard ballot drop boxes during the midterm elections against a type of voter fraud inspired primarily by widely debunked conspiracy theories circulating online.
This action is said to be part of a volunteer group that believes there is a need to stop the alleged voting fraud, despite the fact that no evidence of said election violation has been found. People who are participating in the watch hope to catch people dropping off hundreds of ballots at once.
Truth Social Post Inspires Ballot Drop Box Watchers
According to NBC News, the movement is part of a growing conservative effort to keep an eye on ballot boxes in an effort to uncover election fraud. The news organization has observed small groups of individuals viewing dropboxes at particular times.
There have been complaints made to the Arizona secretary of state about some individuals who were keeping watch at the drop box while donning masks and army fatigues. There have been no reports of armed people joining the watch.
As previously stated, no evidence has been presented to support this popular conspiracy theory among Trump supporters. These followers claim that 'ballot mules' sneakily drop hundreds of fake ballots at polling places. To add to the drama, they say these people do these things in the middle of the night.
Conspiracy Theories Fuelling Paranoia
When Donald Trump lost his re-election bid to Biden in 2020, his backers used every trick in the book to claim that the election was rigged and that Trump had won. Trump's claims included vote-switching software from Venezuela, voting machines hacked by China, and ballots arriving from Asia.
The 90-minute film "2000 Mules," which Trump himself endorses, may be one of these misinformation campaigns with the greatest impact. Prominent MAGA supporters attended the movie's premiere at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
According to the New York Times, the film asserts that individual "mules" filled dropbox after dropbox, but this is never demonstrated in the footage. The main argument of the film is that a vast network of left-wing operatives was behind these absentee ballot boxes.
The above-said documentary made an effort to look into claims of voter fraud made in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. According to Reuters, all five of the listed states were swing states in the 2020 election that ultimately supported Joe Biden for president and were later at the center of irrational claims of fraud.
According to Reuters' fact-checking, "2000 Mules" does not offer any specific, corroborated proof of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
The false allegations that the results of the 2020 election were affected by widespread voter fraud were promoted by former US President Donald Trump and his supporters, but they were refuted by courts, state governments, and officials in his own former administration.
Later in a series of posts on Truth Social, the idea of organized drop box watching gained traction.
Since August, an organization called Clean Elections USA has been urging Trump supporters on Truth Social to organize "ballot tailgate parties" to monitor drop boxes nationwide for suspected "mules."
