MAGA influencer falsely accuses a Californian senior citizen of election fraud
MAGA influencer Nick Shirley confronted an 86-year-old woman named Doris at her home, claiming California records showed she is 126-years-old with 51 votes cast. Shirley, a pro-Trump YouTuber, recorded himself confronting Doris and shared the video online. On Tuesday, Democratic strategist Tom Bonier exposed a fundamental flaw in Shirley's investigation: California's voter database VoteCal, built on the Microsoft SQL Server, generates a default birthdate of January 1, 1900 when date fields contain errors or are blank. This explains the 126-year-old discrepancy, he argues. Bonier wrote on X, "This dips--- discovered that SQL server at one point replaced blank date of birth fields with a default of 01/01/1900, so he harassed an 86 year old woman." The woman disputed Shirley's claims, stating she was in her mid-80s and refusing to review his documents. Despite Bonier's explanation exposing the database glitch, the baseless fraud claim spread among right-wing influencers, including Elon Musk, who amplified the false narrative.This isn't the first time Shirley's inaccurate reporting gains traction amongst MAGA circles. His unsubstantiated investigation into alleged fraud by Somalians in Minnesota was supported by the Trump administration, NPR reports.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.
