Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on Monday falsely claimed that absentee ballots from deceased voters rejected in Michigan’s August 4 primary were evidence of “intentional” fraud, ignoring the fact that the voters died after casting their ballot.
Appearing on Fox News opinion panel show Outnumbered, MacCallum—an ostensible “hard news” anchor who will lead Fox’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention this week—discussed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling the House back to block changes at the United States Postal Service. This comes on the heels of President Donald Trump admitting he opposed funding to the post office because it would help facilitate mail-in voting.
Stating that “everybody knows that the post office has had problems for decades,” MacCallum said that the “rework of this agency has been a long time in the works,” seemingly brushing off recent concerns over the removal of mail sorting machines and public mailboxes ahead of this year’s election.
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“I think one of the things that Democrats have been pretty successful at in the past few days is sort of arm wrestling the message here that it’s all about—that these changes, which were already in the works, are all about depriving people of their right to vote,” she declared.
After saying the Post Office currently has the capacity to easily handle widespread vote-by-mail this year, despite the USPS warning states they can’t guarantee ballots will be delivered on-time, MacCallum shifted her attention to the topic of universal mail-in voting.
“We saw in Michigan, in the recent election there, they went through everything,” the Fox host proclaimed. “You know, you hit the wrong addresses—you get all the things that fall into those categories that you have to throw it out because something was checked wrong or doesn't hold up.”
“They had 864 dead people vote,” MacCallum added. “That is an intentional action. It's a small number, but it's worth noting, because it's an intentional action. It's not a mistake. So there is reason to be very cautious about how this is going to work going forward.”
The Michigan secretary of state, however, noted that the state rejected 846 absentee ballots because the voters died after casting their vote but before Election Day. It was included in the press release describing why other absentee ballots were rejected, most due to late arrival or missing signatures.
The president and his allies have relentlessly attacked mail-in voting, baselessly claiming that it is rife with widespread voter fraud while delegitimizing the process as more states implement vote-by-mail during the coronavirus pandemic. After Michigan released its absentee ballot stats, Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller shared an article from Breitbart, titled “Michigan Rejects 846 Mailed Ballots 'Because the Voter Was Dead,'”prompting several journalists to correct the Trump flack.
MacCallum would later address her remarks and offer a correction. Speaking to Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) on Monday evening, the Fox News anchor said she wanted "to clarify" what she had asserted about the primary election and absentee ballots.
"More than 800 of those votes had come in from people who passed away after they voted and to correct myself those were also eliminated so there's no sign of foul play in that vote," she stated.
