A Twitter user claiming to be a Postal worker recently made posts about how he enjoyed destroying Donald Trump ballots for absentee voters that he found in the mail. The story was picked up by several media outlets, one of which was the Drudge Report.
The original post read, “I love working at the post office in Columbus, Ohio and ripping up absentee ballots that vote for Trump.”
So was this story real? Did a Postal employee really destroy Trump ballots?
Apparently not.
Turns out the Twitter user, who goes by the handle @RandyGDub, has a history of posting jokes on his Twitter page. According to the Daily Beast, “@randygdub’s Twitter bio says he’s from California. And it takes about 60 seconds to go through his timeline and see that many of the tweets there are, well, not meant to be taken literally.”
The Daily Beast also said they contacted the user directly and asked him if he was a Postal employee, to which he replied, “lol no.”
The Postal Service issued a statement saying it had completed an initial investigation and that the Tweets didn’t appear to have been made by a Postal employee:
The Postal Service has completed an initial investigation of the mentioned tweets and does not believe these tweets were made by a postal employee. However, the Postal Service will continue to monitor this situation and if it is determined that the individual making the tweets is a postal employee and there is substantiated evidence of mail being tampered with or destroyed , then the Postal Service will take appropriate corrective action to address the situation.