Vote From Home

Submission 19,013

Part of a series on 2016 United States Presidential Election. [View Related Entries]

About

Vote From Home is a series of hoax images urging Hillary Clinton supporters to vote for the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate from the comfort of their own homes via text message or social media.

Origin

On June 27th, 2016, a photoshopped image urging Clinton supporters to vote for the candidate by posting "Hillary" along with the hashtag "#PresidentialElection" on their Facebook and Twitter accounts was submitted to the /r/The_Donald^[1] subreddit, where it received upwards of 2,800 votes (94% upvoted) and 120 comments within four months (shown below). While the post title suggested the image originated on 4chan, no archived threads prior to this date have been found.

Spread

On July 15th, 2016, the image was reposted in a thread on the /b/ (random) board of 4chan asking former supporters of Bernie Sanders if they planned to switch their allegiance to Donald Trump.^[5] On October 12th, the same image was shared on the WTF Magazine Facebook^[2] page, where it gained over 900 shares, 700 reactions and 170 comments within one month. Days later, Republican City Councilman Joshua Lorenz of Murrysville, Pennsylvania reposted the image on Facebook, citing it as "proof that the election process is rigged" (shown below). The post was subsequently deleted by Lorenz, who claimed it was intended as a joke in a statement to the news site Billy Penn.^[6]

On October 17th, Twitter user @mciszek^[4] tweeted a Clinton campaign ad claiming that Pennsylvania has "online voting," urging viewers to "be wary" of the fake images (shown below, left). On October 31st, Redditor JackballJonez submitted a fake Clinton campaign image telling people to vote online by posting "Hillary" and "#PresidentialElection" on Facebook and Twitter to /r/The_Donald^[9] (shown below, right).

On November 1st, theoretical physicist Robert McNees tweeted a screenshot of a "vote from home" image posted by @TheRickyVaughn, urging viewers to "report this account" (shown below, left).^[7] The following day, McNees posted a screenshot of a message from Twitter's customer support, stating that Twitter did not think "attempting to disenfranchise voters" was a violation of their Terms of Service (shown below, right).^[8]

Also on November 2nd, BuzzFeed published an article calling the "Vote From Home" memes an "attempt to disenfranchise voters." That day, Twitter user @cwarzel tweeted the article to Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, who replied "not sure how this slipped past us, but now it's fixed" (shown below). Meanwhile, the @TheRickyVaughn account was suspended.