Unraveling Trump’s Unsubstantiated Claim of ‘Crooked’ Nursing Home Votes

Former President Donald Trump is making yet another unsubstantiated claim of voter fraud, this time relying on a disputed, partisan report to assert that “thousands and thousands and thousands of crooked votes” came out of nursing homes in Wisconsin. 

In a speech in Arizona on July 22, Trump suggested something suspicious was afoot because “almost everybody” in Wisconsin’s nursing homes voted, when “historically only a very small portion” vote. That’s false. There is no evidence of fraud and voting rates in the state’s nursing homes were not out of the ordinary.

The origin of Trump’s claim is an investigative report spearheaded by former Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who was hired by the Republicans in the state Assembly as a special counsel to look into the state’s 2020 election process. Among other things, the report, released on March 1, claimed that the “Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) unlawfully directed clerks to violate rules protecting nursing home residents, resulting in a 100% voting rate in many nursing homes in 2020, including many ineligible voters.” The bipartisan WEC implemented the rule change, and state officials and a news investigation have disputed the 100% voting rate.