Topic: Newsmax
Theodore Bunker hyped in a Dec. 6 Newsmax article:
The New Black Panther Party will deploy armed guards at polling locations across Georgia during the runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and GOP candidate Herschel Walker.
The New Black Panther Party was joined by Black Lawyers for Justice and other groups in the effort, which they said is intended to protect voters from violence or intimidation. They also said that they are not endorsing either candidate in the race.
"No one will come and touch, harm, threaten, do anything to any person walking into that voting booth to exercise that right," organizer Khallida Ramla Bastet said Monday during a press conference, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.
"This is a legal position that we are taking. We are in position so that if anything happens to anyone, we are here to offer you legal representation. We are here to offer you security. And that's that. And may the best person win," Bastet said.
The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have both described the New Black Panther Party as a hate group.
Just one problem with this scenario: it didn't actually happen. As PolitiFact reported:
However, the New Black Panther Party told PolitiFact it decided against armed patrols.
Ahmad Muhammad, national assistant to Malik Zulu Shabazz, the chairman of the New Black Panther Party, said the group’s members appeared at polling places in Savannah and Brunswick, but decided against carrying firearms because they didn’t want to deter voters.
"We try not to have anyone feel unsafe at the polling sites," Muhammad said.
County officials in multiple counties, the secretary of state’s office and voting rights groups said they received no reports of armed Black Panthers at voting sites on Election Day. We also found no news reports or video footage to support the claim.
PolitiFact added: "If armed individuals had shown up near voting sites, that wouldn’t be illegal under Georgia law unless they stood too close to voters or intimidated them."
Bunker's story has not been corrected to reflect that what he reported on didn't happen, and Newsmax published no follow-up stopry to that effect.
