The Viral Lies Sweeping the Internet This Week
Trump’s Voter ID Fantasy and the 24th Amendment That Was Meant to Stop It
Democracy doesn’t fail in one dramatic moment — it erodes through repetition of lies.
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Voting, immigration, and idle threats.
The myth of undocumented immigrants swinging elections is encased in some of the most offensive, absurd, and thoroughly debunked lies in modern politics. Without the lies, the narrative evaporates, which is why new and worse lies are being invented by the Regime daily.
I covered some of the history of voter registration requirements and the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution yesterday. Today we’ll continue with specific aspects about the seemingly-doomed SAVE Act, and Donald Trump’s claims about it and voting.
One long-debunked claim about non-citizens registered to vote in California made its semi-annual reappearance this week.
California jurors are pulled from multiple state databases — including driver’s licenses, state-issued IDs, tax forms, and voter rolls.
About one-in-six Californians who are eligible to vote are not even registered, so the state uses multiple sources to ensure all citizens are given equal opportunity for jury service.
Since all forms of identification are used, it’s common for jurors to be excused for a multitude of reasons, including pregnancy, disability, financial hardship, lack of transportation, age (under 18 or over 70), previous jury service, citizenship and more.
The post refers to a multi-year study showing 449,404 non-citizens were excused from jury duty. Non-citizens include those are legally authorized to be in the United States - including those on work visas, green cards, temporary protected status, and even permanent residents.
None of them were registered to vote.
Those potential jurors were pulled from DMV and tax records, according to state officials.
Since both legal, authorized and undocumented immigrants can get driver’s licenses in the state since 2015, it follows that noncitizens would appear for jury duty.
That doesn’t mean they’re here illegally, and they were not registered to vote.
No, Donald Trump cannot force voter ID upon the states via executive order.
In an incoherent and rambling post, convicted felon, rapist, and Epstein associate Donald Trump threatened to sign an executive order requiring voter ID in all states for federal elections later this year.
The post came after news broke of the SAVE Act’s failure to secure a filibuster-proof 60 votes, meaning Trump’s voter suppression bill appears dead on arrival at the US Senate.
Like The Office’s Michael Scott “declaring bankruptcy,” Trump’s continued failure to understand that Executive Orders do not automatically become law would be embarrassing for him if he was capable of shame.
Donald Trump cannot impose voter ID requirements on the states by executive order, no matter how often he claims otherwise. The Constitution is explicit: the “times, places, and manner” of elections are set by the states, with limited authority reserved to Congress—not the president.
Executive orders can direct federal agencies, but they do not create new law, and they certainly do not give the White House the power to rewrite state election codes. That authority has never belonged to the executive branch.
The courts have reinforced this boundary for decades.
Even Congress is barred from simply ordering states to administer or enforce federal election rules under the anti-commandeering doctrine; the federal government cannot conscript state officials to carry out its policy preferences. If Congress itself faces those constitutional limits, a president acting alone has even less power.
That’s why every meaningful federal change to election administration—from limited ID requirements to voting system standards—has come through legislation, not executive fiat. Any attempt to force voter ID nationwide via executive order would collide head-on with the Constitution, settled Supreme Court precedent, and the basic structure of U.S. federalism.
No, 85% of Americans do NOT agree with the SAVE Act or its requirements for voter ID.
That number comes from a self-described “Republican polling firm” driven by AI that found 70% of Americans support some form of identification or proof of citizenship for voting.
Notably, the firm does not publish cross-tabs, methodology, or any supporting documentation other than final figures. The dependence on AI rather than direct questions, including what they refer to as “emotive analysis” (a scam for putting words in people’s mouths and making speculative, unstated, unfounded conclusions), is a major red flag.
The firm also has an embarrassing past of mis-calling major elections, including the high-profile 2024 Oregon CD-06 election.
Yes, the SAVE Act’s requirements are unconstitutional under the 24th Amendment
Requiring voters to present documents or identification that cost money is, in practice and in law, indistinguishable from a poll tax — and that’s why it runs headlong into the Constitution.
The 24th Amendment explicitly prohibits poll taxes in federal elections, and the Supreme Court extended that principle to state elections as well, holding that wealth or the ability to pay cannot be a condition for voting.
The core idea is simple: the right to vote cannot be gated behind a financial barrier, whether that barrier is labeled a “tax,” a “fee,” or the cost of acquiring government-approved paperwork.
Courts have repeatedly recognized that it’s the effect, not the label, that matters.
If a state requires a document to vote, and that document costs money to obtain —whether directly through fees for birth certificates or indirectly through transportation, time off work, or bureaucratic hurdles — the state has imposed a monetary prerequisite on the franchise.
The Constitution does not allow that.
Voting is a fundamental right, not a consumer transaction, and the government cannot condition participation in democracy on a person’s ability to absorb costs that fall most heavily on the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and historically disenfranchised communities.
Dress it up however you like: if voting requires you to pay, it violates the Constitution’s most basic guarantees.
More fact-checks from the internet this week
Bad Bunny and Viral Fake Photos
A viral photo of Grammy winner Bad Bunny burning an American flag while wearing a dress is fake. Even if the AI watermark weren’t embedded in the image, you’d think this one would be easy to spot given the flag is missing several stripes. The image first appeared on a Facebook page whose bio reads: "Ai funny Content & Master Meme Maker - 100% Not Real everything is Satire."
Several fake images of Bad Bunny posted to the account have been spread across the internet in the days leading up to and since his record-smashing Superbowl halftime performance.
The Backflip Fake Controversy That Just Won’t Die
Despite the best efforts of myself and others to fact-check the viral false claims about French ice skater Surya Bonaly and the Olympic backflip, the lies continue to spread and embarrass everyone who shares them. I already debunked that narrative here.
This work takes time, sourcing, and legal literacy.
The lies are fast. The fact-checks are not.
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