Republican National Committee Rapid Response Director Steve Guest said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was endorsing voter fraud after Warren joked that her dog, Bailey, will vote for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
“Elizabeth Warren endorses voter fraud, says her dog will be voting Democrat,” Guest tweeted Thursday, including a clip from a Thursday town hall, during which Warren told Symone Sanders, a senior campaign adviser for Biden, that Bailey is “definitely going to vote in November, and he’s voting Democrat all the way” and said “Bailey for Biden!”
“Voter fraud is not a joking matter,” Guest continued. He also linked to an article from Fox5 Atlanta about an Atlanta family that mistakenly received a voter registration application for their deceased cat. The Georgia secretary of state’s office denied to the outlet that the application came from their office.
Following Guest’s tweet, lawmakers, celebrities, activists and thousands other social media users began tweeting the hashtag #Dogs4Biden, according to The Washington Post. The hashtag was promoted by The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump GOP super PAC.
On Thursday night, late-night host Stephen Colbert released a satirical infomercial set to singer Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel,” joking over dogs attempting to vote.
“Hi I’m Sarah McLachlan — will you be an angel for a helpless animal?” it began. “Every day, dogs are being tempted to vote illegally because ballots are shoved into their mail slots. Dogs write in candidates like Senator Sniffbutt, and Governor Catmurderer. Right now, there’s an animal that needs you.”
The sketch features footage of President Trump telling Townhall that Democratic governors could be sending mail-in ballots to dogs.
Trump claimed, “Who are they sending them to? Nobody has any idea. They’re sending them to dogs. They actually have sent to dogs.”
There have been several instances of pets being sent voter registration forms and owners attempting to register dogs. A dead dog named Mozart was sent a form in Virginia in 2012, The Washington Post reported, in addition to other pets across the country.
Last year, a California man admitted to registering his dead father and four dogs to vote to highlight voter fraud, according to The Californian.
Trump and other Republicans have railed against the practice of mail-in voting as states across the country consider measures to allow voters to cast their ballots from home amid the coronavirus pandemic. Studies have found that voter fraud is rare in mailed-in ballots.