Dems Push Bizarre Conspiracy That Elon Musk 'Used Starlink Satellites to Steal Election'
Democrats have been accusing Republicans of pushing “conspiracy theories” for years, but now they are doing exactly that with a baseless claim that 2024 election was rigged using Elon Musk‘s Starlink satellites
Yes, really.
The left’s “BlueAnon” claims Musk’s satellite internet company manipulated swing-state votes in favor of President-elect Donald Trump.
The claim has gained wide traction in leftist social media circles.
TikTok user Etheria77 claimed she heard from an “engineer” friend that Starlink was able to pull off this supposed fraud because the ballot tabulators are “connected to the internet.”
The Associated Press fact-checked and debunked the claims.
My, how times have changed.
Election officials said their voting equipment isn’t even connected to the internet, let alone Starlink.
“It is not possible that Starlink was used to hack or change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election,” said David Becker, founder and executive director of The Center for Election Innovation and Research.
“This, quite simply, did not happen, and could not happen, thanks to the security measures we have in place, and these conspiracy theories echo other disinformation we’ve heard over the past several years.”
Georgia Secretary of State Representative Mike Hassinger said the claims were “absolutely conspiratorial nonsense.”
“We don’t use Starlink equipment for any part of our elections and never have,” Hassinger said. “Our election equipment is 100 percent air-gapped and never connected to the internet.”
TechTarget noted that an air-gapped computer is one that’s incapable of connecting wirelessly or physically with other computers or network devices,
Other posts referenced the use of Starlink at poll sites in Tulare County, California.
According to one source in the article, internet connectivity had improved this year because of Starlink.
However, Stephanie Hill, a systems and procedures analyst for Starlink, told AP that the “connection is strictly for voter check-in purposes only and in no way a part of our voting system.”
The president and CEO of Verified Voting, Pamela Smith, said the theory was absurd.
“While Starlink provided connectivity in a number of jurisdictions for electronic poll books in this election, neither Starlink nor other types of communication networks play any role in counting votes,” Smith told AP in an email.
“Our elections produce huge quantities of physical evidence. A satellite system like Starlink cannot steal that,” she said.
READ: Jake Tapper Accuses Elon Musk of ‘Sabotage’ for Not Allowing Ukraine to Use Starlink