'Tongue-in-cheek' meme telling Clinton supporters to 'vote comfortably online' stirs controversy
Murrysville Councilman Joshua Lorenz said Tuesday he's baffled that his “tongue-in-cheek” post on a private Facebook page has critics accusing him of trying to keep Hillary Clinton supporters away from the polls.
“It was clearly a joke, a tongue-in-cheek comment to my friends,” said Lorenz, a Downtown attorney.
Lorenz, a Republican, drew criticism from Democrats and some political observers after sharing on his private Facebook page on Saturday an meme with unofficial “Vote Hillary” and Democratic Party logos and a false claim in big bold letters: “You can vote at home comfortably online!”
The meme — first reported by Billy Penn, a Philadelphia digital news website, and debunked on Snopes, a fact-checking website — suggested people could vote in the presidential election by posting on Facebook or Twitter Nov. 8 the term “Hillary” with the hashtag #PresidentialElection.
Pennsylvania does not offer online voting, nor do most states, with some exceptions for absentee-voting and military members and family stationed overseas. None use social media for voting.
Gov. Tom Wolf spokesman Jeffrey Sheridan said “that any attempts to disrupt the electoral process should be investigated and prosecuted.”
“Gov. Wolf believes discouraging anyone from having their vote legitimately counted – whether through intimidation, suppression or deception – is absolutely wrong and unacceptable,” Sheridan said in a statement sent to the Trib.
Requests for comment from spokespersons with the Clinton campaign and state GOP went unreturned.
Preston Maddock, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, slammed the posting as an example of Hillary's opponents “taking cheap shots and stoking people's fears around whether our democracy is fundamentally sound or not.”
“If you're a public official, you should know better than to make jokes about the integrity of our elections,” he said.
Lorenz's posting comes as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump continues to question the integrity of the election, with claims that it will be ‘rigged.'
“Talk like this, and talk like (Donald) Trump's questioning our elections or our institutions, it's the height of hyper-partisanship,” argued Maddock, “and it's un-American, quite frankly.”
Lorenz, who said he didn't create the meme and doesn't know its origin, removed the post within about two hours after a Facebook friend took a screenshot and started spreading it on social media. A similar meme has been circulating on Facebook and Twitter.
Lorenz noted the disseminated screenshot failed to capture the comments he posted, in which Lorenz said he wrote, “Typing a candidate's name on Facebook will have the same effect on the election as if you write a candidate's name on a napkin, put it into a bottle, cork it and throw it into the Mon River.”
“It was kind of poking fun at everybody,” Lorenz continued. “I know that meme identified Hillary, but Trump has been out there talking about the election being rigged without any support, either.”
Natasha Lindstrom is a Tribune-Review staff writer.
