Alabama state police arrest 3 poll workers in Birmingham.
Poll workers in Birmingham, Ala., allowed 3,000 invalid votes to benefit Democrat Doug Jones in his Senate race against Republican Roy Moore, according to a fake news article on Facebook. "Alabama State Police arrest 3 poll workers in Birmingham" stated a headline on the American Revolution website. Facebook users flagged the post as being potentially fabricated, as part of the social network’s efforts to combat fake news. There is no truth to this article. We saw no disclaimer on the American Revolution website, but the same story was posted on reaganwasright, a website that identifies itself as satire and is a frequent purveyor of fake news. Jones beat Moore in the Alabama U.S. Senate special election Dec. 12. The Washington Post reported in November that Moore, while in his 30s, initiated sexual encounters with several teenagers, according to the women interviewed by the newspaper. There have been multiple fake news reports related to the election. This article on the American Revolution website contained no details explaining the supposedly fraudulent votes and contains some fictional details such as stating that Birmingham is in Applevale County -- it is located in Jefferson County. It stated that the three poll workers -- Wanda Werkmeister, Olivia Pertuiary and Maureen Brown -- will all face felony charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $1 million in fines. The article includes a quote by Fox News host Sean Hannity, but we found no evidence he said this: "Without that inner-city ghetto vote, Doug Jones doesn’t have a chance. It doesn’t make much sense why someone from the city’s vote is so much more important to Democrats, who swear they aren’t at all racist." The article stated that Hannity made those comments on Dana Loesch’s show Guns God and Grits. A Fox News spokeswoman told PolitiFact that Hannity did not make the statement and Loesch, who hosts a conservative radio show, told PolitiFact that she hadn’t had Hannity on her show in a few years and doesn’t have a show with that name. The American Revolution website linked to the Facebook page for Special News USA. We sent a message to Special News USA via Facebook and a person replied stating, "I do not know whether or not the news is correct or not, but I distributed it to get the feedback of other people." We found no news reports that poll workers were arrested in Birmingham. Robyn Bradley Bryan, Alabama Law Enforcement Agency spokeswoman, told PolitiFact that the agency did not arrest any poll workers. A spokesman for the Alabama Secretary of State, John Bennett, told PolitiFact that there were no poll workers with the names in the article. A headline stated "Alabama state police arrest 3 poll workers in Birmingham." There is no evidence that such a crime occurred. We rate this headline Pants on Fire. ' See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com
['Alabama', 'Birmingham']