Even its creator now admits that ‘2000 Mules’ is discredited

As Election Day 2022 approached, elections officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, were grappling with an unanticipated problem. Voters returning ballots to official drop boxes were being harassed and confronted. In one incident, men dressed in tactical gear were stationed near a drop box in Mesa.

There was an obvious trigger for the pattern: the release earlier that year of the film “2000 Mules.” The film asserted that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by “mules,” people hired to stuff drop boxes with ballots. The claim, filling demand for a narrative explaining Donald Trump’s loss that year, was taken seriously by his supporters. As NPR reported at the time, one Republican official in Arizona, responding to the film, encouraged state residents to police drop box locations in precisely the manner that was demonstrated in Maricopa.