Did U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say, "It's racist to only allow citizens to vote"? No, that's not true: Schumer never said that. Several sites are wrongly attributing this quote to him, but he did not say it. Lead Stories has traced the claim back to its original source, and the quote was entirely made up.
The story recently appeared again in an article published by GNF News on February 16, 2020, titled "Chuck Schumer SLAMS President Trump: 'It's Racist To Only Allow Citizens To Vote'" (archived here). It opened:
Sеnаtе sleazebag Chuсk Sсhumеr (D-NY) hаѕ dесlаrеd rеѕtrісtіng vоtіng to only Americans аѕ an еxеrсіѕе іn racism. Evеrуthіng thаt рrоtесtѕ Amеrіса frоm соnԛuеѕt, such аѕ іmmіgrаtіоn lаwѕ, vеttіng оf rеfugееѕ аnd vоtеr IDs is racist tо соrruрt Chuсk.
Obvіоuѕlу fееlіng a thrеаt tо thе Dеmосrаtѕ' ѕуѕtеm оf vоtеr fraud thаt іѕ thе fоundаtіоn оf every еlесtіоn they wіn, thе Sеnаtе Minority Lеаdеr Chuсk Sсhumеr declared thаt Dеmосrаtѕ wіll attempt to uѕе a "muѕt-раѕѕ" bill tо dissolve Prеѕіdеnt Dоnаld Trump's vоtеr frаud commission іf hе dоеѕn't end іt 'vоluntаrіlу."
Users on social media only saw this:
Chuck Schumer SLAMS President Trump : "It's Racist To Only Allow Citizens To Vote"
Sеnаtе sleazebag Chuсk Sсhumеr (D-NY) hаѕ dесlаrеd rеѕtrісtіng vоtіng to only Americans аѕ an еxеrсіѕе іn racism. Evеrуthіng thаt рrоtесtѕ Amеrіса frоm соnԛuеѕt, such аѕ іmmіgrаtіоn lаwѕ, vеttіng о...
The original story has been copied word-for-word dozens of times, and it has a very complicated history. We traced the oldest copy back to this tweet:
Chuck Schumer SLAMS President Trump : "It's Racist To Only Allow Citizens To Vote" https://t.co/ebWNZvuEcM pic.twitter.com/AexZ8HoQwn
-- BlingNews (@BlingNews_com) August 26, 2017
That tweet refers to an August 27, 2017, article in Bling News. This is the first iteration of the made-up quote that has been wrongly attributed to Schumer. That article cites as its source an opinion piece by Rick Wells from two days prior, which includes the quote in the headline, but with one crucial difference: there are no quote marks.
What does this mean? All future copies of the story that added the quote marks around the phrase are putting words into Schumer's mouth that he never spoke. The words are just the opinion of Rick Wells.
Interestingly, Wells' opinion piece refers to an article Schumer wrote for Medium.com opining that voting rights, particularly for African Americans, are under assault in the United States. This article is the basis for several of the quotes that appear in these cloned articles, but the quote being attributed to Schumer never appears.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalists to rank the reliability of websites, describes gnfnews.com as:
A site in a large network of hoax websites that plagiarize content from satire sites without disclosing that the stories are made up.
According to NewsGuard, the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
We wrote about gnfnews.com before. Here is our most recent article that mentions the site:
