cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21109313
I went to vote today in Georgia USA. People showed up wearing bed sheets over them. What is this supposed to communicate exactly??
This is not my picture; I only crossposted it (original was in !nostupidquestions@lemmy.world ). I also only did so because it was apparently being deleted and I wanted it not to be lost (sorry if it’s a loose fit for the community because of that).
According to OP, it was an early voting location in Georgia. The thread was deleted 9 hours after being posted, with a score of 125 and 36 comments.
Edit: the deletion my not be as nefarious as I assumed; there’s a similar thread in this community that (as I write this) still exists. https://lemmy.world/post/21116630
Weird, your linked post seems to be gone now
Edit: actually, I can’t find any of the original posts. And when I try to Google it I can’t find anything either. Wtf
Edit 2: okay, it took some digging but by searching all of Lemmy by comments and filtering by time, I was able to find the two original posts. Both have been deleted, I assume by moderators? And I can’t find anything when I reverse Google search the image. Something smells fishy. For SEO: Georgia election; election interference; voter intimidation; KKK; sheets; ghosts; early voting; Cobb County
I can’t tell if the original post is an elaborate hoax with a link that never worked in the first place or if something is legit happening. Why would there be lines to vote already? Maybe I’m naive and early voting is that difficult in Georgia that people are lining up now. I don’t know, my ballot gets mailed to me by default and I can just walk up and drop it off any time up until polls close on election day. This feels like it’s a post to sow discord but 🤷♂️
Yeah I really can’t tell the truth here. All I know is something isn’t right
Edit: there are lines for early voting in Cobb County, Georgia, where the original pictures are allegedly from. There were some lines but not long waits usually between 15-30 minutes but many places less than that.
I’m sorry but some white sheets + sunglasses is absolutely not resembling the KKK in any way, especially since everyone in the US is already dressing up for Halloween. This seems to be just overblown drama. Some dumbos probably thought they’d make some funny ghost voting video for tictok or something, not knowing the rules. Claiming this to be some sort of intimidation attempt is just a fragile victim complex.
spooky month 👻
It’s a mystery! Get Scooby and the gang! They’ll unmask those ghost.
The fact that there are no other images of this is odd, but assuming it is at an early voting location today, perhaps they are pretending to be “ghost voters”:
As that drama played out, readers asked Snopes to look into social media posts and media stories reporting that multiple counties in the U.S. had more registered voters than voting-eligible residents. One such story was published by the Washington Times and headlined, “Judicial Watch finds 1.8 million ‘ghost voters’ in 29 states, warns of ‘dirty elections.’”
Judicial Watch, a right wing legal activist organization, claimed to have discovered in an October 2020 study that “353 U.S. counties had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens.”
Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ghost-voters-in-29-states/
Some further important context, the ‘comparison’ Judicial Watch made to come to this conclusion was based on, on one side, ‘the most recent voter registration data for counties’ and on the other, a math-based population estimate collected over the course of five years.
It’s kind of like claiming that Johnny, age eighteen, is a different person from Johnny, age thirteen, based on height difference.
Edit: A better analogy might be standing in front of Johnny, taking off your glasses, and then demanding the blurry blob tell you what it did with Johnny.
Isn’t it generally illegal to film or take photos in a voting location? And now people are further spreading it? Considering how divided this country has gotten, an argument can be made this is dangerous for those in the picture.
I’m not sure a good argument can be made. Being at a polling place doesn’t say who you’re voting for. I don’t see the danger.
The argument goes like this: Georgia, along with 11 other states, has prohibited filming and photos in polling locations, which is a legal prohibition in the public interest that has been upheld by the courts.
That’s not an argument that being filmed at a polling place is dangerous.
In public (and only when one would have a reasonable assumption of privacy, or whatever). Poll places don’t follow those same rules. If they can prevent people from wearing campaign-related tshirts within X feet of a polling place, then they can prevent people from taking photos. Which they do.
