Former Georgia election worker Wandrea Shaye Moss was not arrested | Fact check

The claim: Georgia elections worker Wanda Shaye Moss was arrested for election fraud

A June 11 post on X (direct link, archive link), formerly Twitter, shows a clip from the Fox News show “Jesse Watters Primetime.”

“Wanda’s been arrested!” Watters says as a woman’s mugshot appears on the screen. “The Democrat operative who was caught on camera allegedly stuffing ballots in Bridgeport, Connecticut, last year was charged with unlawfully possessing another person’s ballot and witness tampering. But this has nothing to do with her alleged stuffing in 2023 – this goes all the way back to 2019. Wanda was arrested for ballot fraud in the city’s 2019 Democrat primary for the same candidate she helped elect in 2023, Mayor Joe Ganim.”

The X user wrote in the caption, “Wanda Shaye Moss was arrested for election fraud in Fulton County, GA.”

A version of the claim shared on X was shared more than 7,000 times before it was deleted. Other posts on Facebook made the same claim.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page

Our rating: False

The woman Watters referred to is Wanda Geter-Pataky in Connecticut. She is a different person than Wandrea Shaye Moss, a former election worker in Georgia who was wrongly accused of election fraud during the 2020 presidential election.

Geter-Pataky case ongoing; Moss was wrongly accused

Watters didn’t say Wanda’s full name during his June 11 broadcast, which appeared to spur confusion over which person he was reporting on. He was referring to Wanda Geter-Pataky, a Democratic official in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who was arrested along with three other people on June 11 and charged with election crimes including unlawfully possessing absentee ballots.

Social media users took this as a reference to Wandrea Shaye Moss, a poll worker during the 2020 presidential race. Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, also a poll worker, were both wrongly accused by former President Donald Trump and his then-attorney Rudy Giuliani of taking part in an election fraud scheme.

Fact check: This Biden ad attacking Trump isn’t new. It’s from 2019

Giuliani wrongly claimed that the women were caught on surveillance camera “passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine” and that they and other workers were handling illegal ballots in suitcases. Trump named Freeman 18 times in a now-public phone call to Georgia officials.

In reality, the “USBs” were just ginger mints and the “suitcases” were proper storage containers. But the false claims led to Moss and Freeman being targeted with repeated death threats and harassment – to the point that Moss changed her appearance and went into hiding and her mother left her home for about twomonths. Moss and Freeman won $148 million in a civil lawsuit against Giuliani in December 2023.

Watters and his team have covered Geter-Pataky before. In November 2023, a reporter from the show was sent to Connecticut to question residents about her reputation and approached her outside of her home. The previous “Jesse Watters Primetime” reports referenced her as Wanda Geter.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Our fact-check sources:

• Internet Archive, June 11, Jesse Watters Primetime  FOX News  June 11, 2024 5:00pm-6:00pm PDT
• John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, accessed June 13, Wandrea Arshaye Moss
• PBS, June 21, 2022, Who is Wandrea ArShaye ‘Shaye’ Moss and why is she testifying before the Jan. 6 committee?
• Fox 5 Atlanta (YouTube), June 21, 2022, January 6 Hearing: Georgia election worker Shaye Moss full testimony
• Connecticut Post, June 12, Bridgeport officials charged with election fraud tied to absentee ballots from 2019 mayoral campaign
• NPR, June 11, 4 people are charged in a Connecticut city election misconduct case

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.

USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.