Viral Tweet That Trump Seized on Gets Deleted Because Magical ‘Vote Dump’ Turned Out to Be Typo

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Conservative columnist Matt Mackowiak found himself at the center of a curious conspiracy theory, promoted by thousands of loyal MAGA supporters on Twitter, and even President Donald Trump himself, that suggested serious shenanigans in an online vote count update in Michigan.

For early morning Twitter surfers on the day following the election, one of the most shared Tweets was a screen capture of website Decision Desk that curiously showed former Vice President Joe Biden getting an increase of 128,000 voters, while President Trump received zero. Mackowiak added, “An update gives Biden 100% of new votes — 128k+.” The image share can be seen below:

There is no question that the photos above raise serious eyebrows, but as some pointed out on Twitter, there was no way to verify the image, or that there was some voter fraud afoot. Nonetheless, it got the attention of President Trump, who has been vocal in promoting baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

Eventually, the Tweet came to his attention, which he quote-tweeted with the almost cartoonish all-caps “WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?” before eventually retweeting the source tweet as well.

As it turns out, the discrepancy in the update was not some nefarious conspiracy to rig the election for Joe Biden. According to numerous reports on Twitter, including from Mackowiak himself, it was a simple typo, evidenced by how the vote count for third party candidate Jo Jorgenson also dropped in the same screencap.

To his great credit, Mackowiak noted the mistake, and deleted the viral tweet, adding “This tweet was taken and shared honestly. I have now learned that the MI update referenced was a typo in one country.

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