Donald Trump's Voter Fraud Hotline

Overview

Donald Trump's Voter Fraud Hotline is a phone number and website designed for United States citizens to report voter suppression, irregularities and fraud. Despite there being no evidence of voter fraud, the Donald Trump re-election campaign bolstered the website after every major news outlet announced President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. Since its launch, people reported numerous false and prank reports to the hotline.

Background

On November 5th, 2020, the Trump re-election campaign began posting notices about reporting "voter suppression, irregularities and fraud." That day, the Team Trump Twitter account tweeted,^[1] "Help stop voter suppression, irregularities and fraud! Tell us what you are seeing. Report a case: http://djt45.co/stopfraud Call: (888) 503-3526." The tweet received more than 4,400 likes and 1,600 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Developments

Pranks

On November 5th, 2020, some online began posting videos of themselves making prank phone calls to the hotline. That day, Twitter user @herosnvrdie69 tweeted a video with the caption, "So I told the Trump voter fraud hotline I committed voter fraud." The tweet received more than 101,000 views, 2,700 likes and 395 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

The following day, Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch posted a prank phone call, accusing the Hamburglar of voter fraud. The post received more than 548,000 views, 30,000 likes and 6,700 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Media Coverage

On November 8th, 2020, Last Week Tonight joked about the hotline. Within 24 hours, video of the segment received more than 2.5 million views (shown below).

Numerous media outlets covered the pranks, including the Washington Post,^[2] The Guardian,^[3] NBC,^[4] ABC,^[5] Business Insider,^[6] Forbes^[7] and more.

Search Interest

External References