Dear TV Broadcasting Station,
On behalf of the nonpartisan, nonprofit voting rights group Voters Not Politicians, I’m writing to request that you and your affiliates discontinue broadcasting, and refrain from current or future placement, of the ad paid for by Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Kevin Rinke entitled, “Why is it that dead people always vote Democrat?” because it is demonstrably false.
The faulty premise of this advertisement is that voter fraud is a significant issue in Michigan, that election officials are allowing ballots from deceased individuals to be counted, and that the Democrats will not fix the alleged problem because this somehow inures to their benefit. These assertions have been repeatedly and categorically proven to be false.
An ad that calls into question the legitimacy of free and fair elections in the state of Michigan based on inaccurate and demonstrably false claims causes harm to all citizens. If stations continue to allow candidates to misuse campaign ads to broadcast and reinforce knowingly false information for political gain, you are setting an incredibly dangerous precedent for this election.
There are multiple sources directly and concretely rebutting the false claims made in the ad, such as, for example, the “Report On The November 2020 Election In Michigan” released by the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee chaired by Republican Michigan State Senator Edward McBroom, which investigated the claims of deceased voter fraud and proved them false:
“The Committee researched these claims [Deceased and Non-Residents Voting] and concluded that most were false. There were two claims of deceased individuals casting votes that were found to be true; one was a clerical error while the other was a timing issue. The Committee concluded that none of these constituted fraudulent election activities or manipulations.” [2021, Page 9].
The Senate Committee’s findings are consistent with repeated investigations by the media including Bridge Michigan (“Dead ‘voter’ cited in Trump lawsuit never cast ballot, Michigan records show,” November 2020; “Meet Michigan’s ‘dead’ voters. They’re quite alive, despite false fraud claims,” November 2020), USA Today (“Fact check: No evidence that 14,000 dead people cast ballots in Wayne County, Michigan,” November 2020), and CNN:
“To hear some people tell it — including a handful of prominent Republicans . . . you might think that Democrats were using dead people to steal Michigan’s Electoral College votes from Trump. But, like much of the misinformation circulated online this week by some Trump supporters, the claim falls apart under scrutiny. A CNN analysis of the claim and the purported backing for it did not find a single instance of that happening.” [“Claims that dead people voted went viral. These are the facts.” CNN, November 2020]
After making the false claim that there is a problem with deceased voters in Michigan, Rinke says “I’ll audit the voting rolls to ensure all voters are registered, identified, and alive,” but the auditing he’s highlighting already occurs and can be read here.
Kevin Rinke’s ad claims that Michigan has an issue with voter fraud of deceased individuals. This claim has been repeatedly proven false. Rinke also suggests there is no process in place to address votes by deceased people. That is also untrue. The overwhelming evidence after extensive audits and investigations is that this is a rare occurrence that happens when someone dies after submitting an absentee ballot but prior to the election and that the clerks and secretary of state have processes in place to ensure such ballots are rejected and votes not counted.
Therefore, we reiterate our request that you, as a responsible broadcaster, act immediately to take down the false and misleading, “Why is it that dead people always vote Democrat?” ad.
Sincerely,
Nancy Wang
Executive Director
Voters Not Politicians
