That Facebook post about voting by text message got shared 50,000 times before it was debunked

Blair Chen · 2026-06-06T11:00:03.774646+00:00

A cousin of mine sent it to the family group chat last Tuesday. Said you could just text your vote instead of going to the polls. I checked with our county elections office and the lady laughed. Told me they get calls about this every election cycle now. Has anyone else had relatives fall for the same exact hoax year after year?

the_alex3mo ago

Figured it was fake the second I saw it.

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paige1663mo ago

C'mon, it's not that crazy of an idea - technology moves fast and some places do let you vote online already. Maybe the post was just ahead of its time, and the county office lady was being a little too dismissive.

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nathankim3mo ago

Got a call from my aunt last week panicking because she saw a post saying the polls were closed early due to weather. I had to pull up three different news sites to convince her it wasn't true. The worst part is she screenshotted the fake post and sent it to me like "See, this is what I'm talking about!" (with a dozen crying-laughing emojis, obviously). My cousin texted me later saying she forwarded the same thing to her book club and half of them almost changed their plans. It's like these hoaxes have a life of their own, you know? They just keep coming back every single year no matter how many times we debunk them.

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