X owner Elon Musk got fact-checked by an election official on his own platform after amplifying a post spreading misinformation about voter ID.
On Tuesday, Musk responded to a post from the account “End Wokeness” which alleged that the “number of voters registering without a photo ID is SKYROCKETING in 3 key swing states” due to undocumented immigrants.
“Extremely concerning,” Musk said.
The post, thanks largely to Musk’s reshare, garnered 62.3 million views and stirred outrage among right-wing users.
A flurry of blue check accounts used the post to accuse President Joe Biden of “trying to steal the election,” a continuation of the debunked conspiracy theory that claims the previous presidential election was stolen.
The data cited by End Wokeness comes from the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) “Help America Vote Verification” program, which lists the time a state registers a new voter with only a name, date of birth, and social security number.
Yet Musk, who is no stranger to spreading false claims on X, was quickly fact-checked by an actual election official. Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County Recorder, detailed in an eight-point post how the claim promoted by Musk was entirely inaccurate.
“Hi Elon! The post you’re quote-tweeting seems to suggest that, based on Social Security Administration data, 220,731 illegal immigrants have registered to vote in Arizona since January 1, 2024,” Richer began. “A few things if I may be so bold (since I have easy access to Maricopa County’s data — which makes up 62% of Arizona).”
In his first point, Richer noted that only about 60,000 people had registered to vote so far this year in Arizona, with just 39,653 new voters being attributed to Maricopa County. Richer also detailed how Arizona’s voter rolls have actually been decreasing, with Maricopa County going from 2.6 million registered voters in 2020 to about 2.4 million this year.
So why the discrepancy? The numbers presented by the SSA for Texas, which claimed 1.2 million voters registered without photo ID, were also called inaccurate by Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson in a statement on Wednesday.
“It is totally inaccurate that 1.2 million voters have registered to vote in Texas without a photo ID this year. The truth is our voter rolls have increased by 57,711 voters since the beginning of 2024,” she said. “This is less than the number of people registered in the same timeframe in 2022 (about 65,000) and in 2020 (about 104,000).”
Nelson further explained that Texans must show proof of ID to vote, and those who only present a social security number are subject to additional screening to prove their identity.
“The 1.2 million figure comes from the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) website, which is supposed to report the number of times states have asked to verify an individual’s social security number,” she continued. “The SSA number is clearly incorrect, and we are working now to determine why there is such a large discrepancy.”
Richer likewise pointed to the fact that regardless of the numbers, the SSA is merely verifying individuals’ identities and does not check for citizenship status. Therefore, the data cannot be used, as was done by End Wokeness, to tally up individuals who may not be a citizen of the country.
“Motor Vehicle Divisions are typically used for proof of citizenship. In Arizona, since October 1, 1996, drivers have had to provide proof of citizenship for driver’s licenses (except Type F),” Richer added. “We use this data to confirm citizenship for the vast majority of registration applicants. We also have some other tools at our disposal, or we communicate directly with the voter to get documentation.”
And while there are roughly 30,000 registered voters from Arizona on what’s known as the Federal Only list, which comprises individuals who attest to be citizens but have yet to provide documentation, Richer notes that “studies show that these people are disproportionately college-aged students (perhaps who don’t have ready access to a birth certificate).”
“But there is 0 validity to the suggestion in the original post that 220,731 illegal immigrants have registered in Arizona in 2024,” Richer said.
In closing, Richer, a self-described “owner of many, many Musk-related products,” thanked Musk for “all the cool sciencey stuff” he continued to do.
Musk thus far has not responded to or acknowledged the debunking of his post. Despite the attention it garnered, no Community Note is under the posts from Musk or End Wokeness.
Richer, a Republican, has been pleading with his base since the 2020 presidential election to stop spreading misinformation. Yet with such claims still being championed by Musk, it seems Richer’s viral explanations are falling on deaf ears.
Richer also previously went viral for shutting down a Turning Point USA representative who claimed she’d received two ballots and could file them both.
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