After Republicans seeking to recall California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said they had reached the number of signatures necessary to trigger a special election, one conservative influencer falsely claimed that the organizers have faced hurdles that voters in November’s election did not.
“So California is requiring signature verification for Gavin Newsom’s recall, but didn’t require it for the mail in ballots. How strange,” said actor Kevin Sorbo, who starred as “Hercules” in a TV series about the mythological hero, in a tweet sent to hundreds of thousands of followers.
A screenshot of Kevin Sorbo’s tweet making false claims about California’s election laws.
In fact, California did require signature verification for mail-in ballots for the 2020 election, as PolitiFact reported in the months leading up to Election Day. Several election officials, experts, journalists and fact-checkers debunked Sorbo’s Feb. 15 tweet soon after it was posted.
But the tweet still circulated widely, picking up thousands of retweets and likes. It was further amplified on the platform by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani.