In a desperate attempt to cast doubt on the fairness and validity of the 2020 election, President Donald Trump’s son, Eric, tweeted out a video of dozens of ballots he said had been cast for his father in the state of Virginia being set alight.

According to CNN:

“The video, which surfaced on Tuesday, features a man with a plastic bag full of papers that look like ballots, which he doused with a flammable liquid and set aflame. The person, whose face is never shown, claims the 80 false ‘ballot’ are ‘all for President Trump’ on the video. Though the location is not discussed on the video, the races on the papers are from Virginia Beach, Virginia.”

However, as is so often the case with both the president and his defenders, Eric’s “evidence” turns out to be complete nonsense, with Christine Lewis, Virginia Beach’s deputy registrar, explaining that the video shows the burning of sample ballots, which are clearly identified by what they lack: The “bar code markings that are on all official ballots.” Her statement showed what a real ballot looks like when compared to the sample ballots from a screenshot of the video:

End of story? Not quite:

“Even though Twitter slapped a notice on Eric’s bogus tweet, the video was later picked up by right-wing media site the Gateway Pundit:

“The version Eric Trump shared had about 1.2 million views alone. CNN found three other accounts that posted the same video that had more than 115,000 combined views.

“Eric Trump shared the video by retweeting an account that posted it. The account Eric Trump retweeted has now been suspended, which means the video can no longer be seen on Eric Trump’s feed.
The Gateway Pundit did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.”

It’d be nice to think that Eric Trump and other Trump supporters would learn from getting slapped down when they try to spread false information (aka “fake news” as President Trump loves to call it), but we won’t hold our breath waiting for that.

Featured Image Via NBC News