Detroit officials are debunking a video that falsely implies election fraud occurred when a man pulled a red wagon containing a box into a vote-counting center early Wednesday.
City officials shot down the allegations made in the video in a statement to CNN on Thursday.
“There was no election equipment – no ballots or ballot boxes – transported in red wagons,” city attorney Lawrence Garcia wrote.
And if that wasn’t enough, a local TV station said the man who appears in the video is one of their photographers and was bringing a case of camera equipment into the TCF Center, where election workers were counting votes.
CNN affiliate WXYZ posted a photograph of a red gear wagon. Investigative reporter Ross Jones tweeted, “The ‘ballot thief’ was my photographer.”
The video was posted with an article on Texas Scorecard, a conservative website that describes itself as a site dedicated to being “always trustworthy, with the facts in context” and “relentlessly pro-citizen, unabashedly pro-liberty.”
The video has been picked up by other conservative media, and racked up millions of views. Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s son, called attention to the video by tweeting a link to it on Wednesday evening.
In his remarks Thursday claiming that the election was being stolen by the Democrats, the President appeared to reference the video and the allegations that came with it when he mentioned what he called an “unexplained” delay in delivering votes for counting in Detroit.
“The final batch did not arrive until 4 in the morning, and even though the polls closed at 8,” Trump said. “And the batches came in, and nobody knew where they came from.”
Texas Scorecard said the video was taken by a woman who was serving as a poll watcher.
“Where’d this guy come from so late at night?” the woman who took the video says during the recording. “I thought the polling places were closed. And yet we have a box.”
The site claims the woman was concerned the box may have contained ballots and arrived long after all ballots should have arrived at the counting facility.
The video comes amid efforts by the Trump campaign to halt vote-counting in key battleground states, including Michigan.
A state court judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Trump campaign that asked for an immediate stop to the vote counting until its representatives had “meaningful” access to ballot counting and adjudication.
The lawyer representing the state, Heather Meingast, said the case was essentially moot because the counting had already concluded. The judge said that the Trump campaign’s request is going to be denied in a written order and she was not convinced of any substantial likelihood of success on the merits of the case.
A ballot counter inside the TCF Center in downtown Detroit, where thousands of absentee ballots are being tabulated, told CNN on Wednesday that the Trump campaign is “not telling the truth about not being given access.”
“They have all the access they need,” the woman, who requested anonymity due to security concerns, says.
Entry into the TCF Center wasn’t restricted until Wednesday afternoon, according to Garcia, the city attorney. After that, credentials were checked on the ground floor coming into the conference center.
“Entry into the Central Counting Board (which was in Hall E of TCF) was always manned so that no one could enter without going past Dept of Elections workers. Election challengers had to sign in at the door to Hall E, and media was confined to a special area inside the hall.”
Despite the fact that the video has been debunked, Brandon Waltens, the author of the Texas Scorecard article, told CNN on Thursday the website stands by its reporting.
CNN’s Ariane de Vogue, Sara Sidner, Laura Jarrett, Annie Grayer and Jessica Schneider contributed to this report.
