Fact-check: GOP voters were not denied access in general election, as recirculated video suggested

Our weekly check-in with the Texas Truth-O-Meter.

By Gabrielle Settles, PolitiFactNovember 10, 2022 11:55 am, ,

From PolitiFact:

A video posted on Instagram days before the Nov. 8 general election suggests GOP voters were denied access in the general election.

The video’s caption doesn’t say when or where it was filmed. But PolitiFact found that this video was taken in March in Texas, during the state’s primary elections — and doesn’t depict a calculated attempt to suppress Republican votes.

The video, posted to Instagram on Nov. 3, shows what appears to be an election worker inside a polling place. At the beginning of the video, the poll worker says, “with this election, you can vote in any precinct.”

Someone off camera then asks him about the “Republican side” of the polling place, and the worker replies that the site is closed because he doesn’t have staff. When the person off camera asks more questions, the election worker says, “You can vote Democrat, not Republican.”

The caption on the video says, “Polling official says poll site is closed if voting Republican due to ‘not enough staff.’”

Comments on the post reflected peoples’ confusion: “Can we please have context? Which election? Which state and city?” said one person. Many others asked, “Where is this?”

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook.)

The video is from March 2022, when some voters faced challenges voting in the Texas primary election. The original video was posted to Twitter on March 1 and indicated it was taken in Houston. …

Read the full story at PolitiFact, and listen to an interview with PolitiFact Texas’ Nusaiba Mizan in the audio player above.

Radio interview produced by Sean Saldana

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