Does an authentic photo show Trump ballots for 2024 about to be destroyed by a poll worker in North Carolina? No, that's not true: The photo used for this post dates back to 2020 in Wallingford, Connecticut, and is not related to ballot destruction or the 2024 election. The original, uncropped photo shows Wallingford Town Clerk Barbara Thompson preparing to take absentee ballots to the post office in October 2020.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on November 5, 2024. The caption said:
For my next trick, I'm going to make all of these Donald Trump and Mark Robinson ballots disappear. Happy #ElectionDay #NCPol
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken Tue Nov 5 18:08:08 2024 UTC)
The image was cropped from a photo (archived here) shot on October 2, 2020, by Dave Zajac for the Record-Journal, a daily newspaper in Meriden, Connecticut.
The caption for the original photo on the stock image site Alamy (archived here), read:
Town Clerk Barbara Thompson gets ready to bring nearly 7,000 absentee ballots to the post office from Wallingford Town Hall, Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, in Wallingford, Conn. Last Friday was the first day ballots could be mailed out for the November general election. The ballots were transported by pickup truck with a covered bed.
This is a screenshot of the photo as it appeared on Alamy on November 5, 2024:
(Source: Alamy screenshot taken on Tue Nov 5 at 19:50:00 2024 UTC)
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims concerning the 2024 U.S. presidential election can be found here. Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Donald Trump can be read here.
