Protesters who stormed a vote-counting site in Detroit on Wednesday, banging on windows and shouting “Stop the count!” appear to have had one thing in common: They organized themselves online.
A New York Times analysis found 32 public and private Facebook groups with a total of 301,000 followers organized an “urgent call to action in Detroit,” asking Republican poll challengers to watch the vote counting at the downtown site, TCF Center. The call was also shared on less popular social networks like Parler and the pro-Trump website TheDonald.win.
The earliest call for additional Republican poll challengers was posted to Facebook at 7:27 a.m., according to The Times’s analysis. “Come to TCF Center,” read the post in a group called Michigan for Donald Trump. “Help needed to protect our lead. Tell others.”
By around 3 p.m., there were dozens of calls posted on Facebook, and people responded by showing up; over 100 people were at the vote-counting site by then.
NBC News earlier reported on a private Facebook group, Stand Up Michigan to Unlock Michigan, that was part of the calls; Facebook removed the group shortly after.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After the protesters arrived, workers began to cover the site’s windows, leading to unfounded rumors about their motivations. Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, shared one such video, and captioned her post, “SHADY …” It collected 62,000 likes and shares on Twitter, and 7.3 million video views. On Wednesday evening, President Trump tweeted about the falsehood, generating more than 350,000 likes and shares.
Lawrence Garcia, the city of Detroit’s corporation counsel, said the windows had been covered because poll workers inside had expressed concerns about people taking unauthorized photographs and videos of their work.
“Only the media is allowed to take pictures inside the counting place,” he said, “and people outside the center were not listening to requests to stop filming poll workers and their paperwork.”
Jake Rollow, the communications director for the Michigan Department of State, vehemently opposed the misleading narrative. “Michigan’s absentee ballot counting processes are meticulous, fair and transparent,” he said. “The bipartisan boards of county and state canvassers will review the processes and results in the coming 12 days.”
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