William Bradley: Michigan Secretary of State Refutes ‘Dead Voter’ Claims

William Bradley is the name of a voter in the 2020 presidential election in Michigan. Conservatives on Twitter believe that Bradley is deceased, having passed away in 1984.

Shortly after William Bradley’s name began to trend on Twitter, the Michigan Secretary of State’s office released a statement reading:

Ballots of voters who have died are rejected in Michigan, even if the voter cast an absentee ballot and then died before Election Day. On rare occasions, a ballot received for a living voter may be recorded in a way that makes it appear as if the voter is dead.

This can be because of voters with similar names, where the ballot is accidentally recorded as voted by John Smith Sr when it was actually voted by John Smith Jr; or because of inaccurately recorded birth dates in the qualified voter file; for example, someone born in 1990 accidentally recorded as born in 1890. In such scenarios, no one ineligible has actually voted, and there is no impact on the outcome of the election. Local clerks can correct the issue when it is brought to their attention.

Information on Michigan voters is available here.

William Bradley Is Alleged to Have Voted Via Absentee Ballot in Wayne County, Michigan

GettyAn employee of the West Bloomfield Township Clerks office sorts absentee ballots by precinct and ballot number at the West Bloomfield Clerks office on October 31, 2020, in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

The allegations surrounding Bradley gained national traction when the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a message from a user going by a conservative activist named Fleccas. Fleccas tweeted, “Turns out 118 year old “William Bradley” voted via absentee ballot in Wayne County, Michigan. William Bradley died in 1984. How long has this been going on?” Fleccas included various screenshots apparently proving his allegation.

Fleccas later replied to his own tweet, saying, “Who are the people requesting these absentee ballots, filling them out, and returning them? How many make it through and are counted? This election proves that every vote counts. Discrepancies like this are unacceptable!”

Florida Republican Congressional candidate Anna Paulina Luna tweeted about the allegations and included a video apparently showing a person accessing the information involving Bradley.

Donald Trump’s 2020 Presidential Campaign Has Filed a Lawsuit Alleging That Dead People Voted in Nevada

In July 2020, Rutgers University political science professor Lorraine Minnite told USA Today that dead people voting is a myth. Minnite said, “There could be a short period of time in which if you took a snapshot of a (voter registration) list there might be some names of people on there who have died yesterday or died last week. It takes election officials a little bit of time to sort those things out.” Minnite also highlighted the regularity that registration lists are updated as evidence of the myth.

On November 5, CNBC reported that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign had launched a lawsuit in Nevada alleging that dead people had voted. Republican activist Adam Laxalt told the media in part, “We believe there are dead voters that have been counted.” Laxalt made similar allegations during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News on November 4. In that appearance, Laxalt said, “We don’t know how [many] bad voters there are in this giant stack [of mail-in ballots]. We also know there are likely to be dead voters. There are likely to be people that have moved out of Las Vegas but found their ballots were still cast, so we’re looking into all of this.”

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