Misrepresented photo fuels false claims of Canadians voting in US

A widespread post on X claims to show the ballot of a Canadian who skirted the law to vote for Republican candidate Donald Trump in the 2024 race for president. But non-citizens cannot vote in US elections, and the image spreading online has been misrepresented; the photo and ballot belong to an American voter who lives in the state of North Carolina.

"I am Canadian but USA doesn't require voter Id so figured I would drive across the border and vote," says an October 28, 2024 post on X.

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Screenshot from X taken October 29, 2024

Another X post sharing the same picture added: "Came on holiday to the US and they didn't require voter ID so just voted on a bunch of ballots."

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Screenshot from X taken October 30, 2024

The posts generated millions of engagements and inspired numerous copycats across X and other platforms, leading some users to claim Canadians were committing mass voter fraud on behalf of Trump, who faces Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 election.

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Screenshot from X taken October 30, 2024

Trump and his allies have baselessly claimed that immigration policies -- and election laws aimed at making it easier to register and cast a ballot -- are enabling non-citizen voting.

But it is illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. Several safeguards prevent the practice, and independent analyses have found only a handful of documented cases of it occurring in past elections. 

Additionally, 36 states have laws in place for the 2024 elections that require voters to show some form of identification when they visit the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (archived here).

The photo accompanying the posts about Canadians voting, meanwhile, has been miscaptioned.

A reverse image search reveals the picture was originally shared October 13 by Ashley Muñoz, a former writer for the conservative Right Side Broadcasting Network who posts to X under the username "@RedLady2024" (archived here).

"I'm voting for the candidate who chooses Americans over illegals," Muñoz said in her original post.

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Screenshot from X taken October 30, 2024

The picture shows a Florida ballot, based on the down-ballot candidates listed. Muñoz said in a reply to her original post that she is part of a military family stationed in North Carolina, but that she votes by mail in Florida (archived here).

In an October 30 email, Muñoz shared the original iPhone photo with AFP and said: "The photo is indeed mine."

Metadata attached to the file indicates it was taken September 28 at GPS coordinates that correspond to the city of Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Muñoz also shared another picture taken the same day of the envelope that contained her ballot, dated September 20.

She pushed back against the misuse of her photo on X, saying the posts about Canadians voting "stole" and cropped the picture that she captured and shared (archived here, here, here, here and here).

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the election here.

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