Fact Check

Tens of Thousands of Fraudulent Clinton Votes Found in Ohio Warehouse

A disingenuous article falsely claimed that "tens of thousands" of fraudulent ballots were discovered in a warehouse in Ohio.

Published Sept. 30, 2016

 (FLICKR)
Image Via FLICKR
Claim:
Thousands of pre-marked ballots for Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates were found in a warehouse in Ohio.

On 30 September 2016, the Christian Times Newspaper (CTN) web site published an article reporting that "tens of thousands" of pre-marked ballots cast for Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates had been discovered stored in an Ohio warehouse:

BALLOT

Election officials in Franklin County, Ohio are reportedly stumped over what one maintenance worker found in a dilapidated downtown Columbus warehouse earlier this week.

According to sources, Randall Prince, a Columbus-area electrical worker, was doing a routine check of his companies wiring and electrical systems when he stumbled across approximately one dozen black, sealed ballot boxes filled with thousands of Franklin County votes for Hillary Clinton and other Democrat candidates.

Clinton campaign’s likely goal was to slip the fake ballot boxes in with the real ballot boxes when they went to official election judges on November 8th.

There is no truth to the above-quoted story.

Christian Times Newspaper's report described the above-displayed photograph as showing "Randall Prince" with his discovery of pre-marked Clinton ballots, but this picture was actually taken in 2015 in Birmingham, England, and simply captures a man unloading a truck of ballot boxes at a polling station. It appears that CTN altered the photograph (removing "Ballot Box" from some of the boxes and reversing the image) in an apparent attempt to make it difficult to find the original picture:

ballot boxes
ballot boxes 2

Although CTN presents itself as a legitimate publication (by imitating the name of the genuine Christian Times newspaper), the web site has invented and promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including false stories reporting that Donald Trump was removed from primary ballots, that Clinton said "Harambe" was a victim of racism,  that an African-American Trump supporter was killed in Chicago, and that the 4th of July had been cancelled due to fears of terrorism.

While the web site does not explicitly label their content as fiction, they do carry a disclaimer exempting themselves from responsibility for their efforts:

Christian Times Newspaper is your premier online source for news, commentary, opinion, and theories. Christian Times Newspaper does not take responsibility for any of our readers' actions that may result from reading our stories. We do our best to provide accurate, updated news and information.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.