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Image of Trump peeking at wife's ballot is from 2016 | Fact check
The claim: Post implies image shows Donald Trump voting in 2024 presidential election
A Nov. 1 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes a screenshot of a CNN broadcast showing former President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump at a polling place in New York.
"Breaking News: Trump casts vote in presidential race," reads the CNN chyron on the image, which shows Trump appearing to peek in his wife's direction as she casts her ballot.
"He can’t even trust his wife," reads the post's caption, which includes the hashtags #voteharris, #teamharris and #timwalz.
Some social media users appeared to take the image as showing Trump casting his ballot in the 2024 general election.
"I thought felons couldn't vote," one commenter said, a reference to Trump's conviction in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York hush-money trial.
Another commenter said, "How is he still casting votes in NY? Isn’t he a Florida resident now?"
The post was liked more than 600 times in three days.
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Our rating: Missing context
The implied claim is wrong. The image shows Trump casting his vote in New York in the 2016 presidential election. The former president now lives and votes in Florida.
Image shows Trump casting ballot in 2016 presidential race
The image in the Instagram post doesn't show Trump and his wife casting their ballots in the 2024 general election. Rather, it dates back to Nov. 8, 2016, Election Day in the presidential race between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
CNN shared an animated version of the image on Twitter, now X, that Election Day, with the caption, "Donald Trump peeked at Melania's ballot, and Twitter had some jokes. Big league."
Variety used the same image in a Nov. 8, 2016, report about the CNN photo going viral and social media users using it to poke fun at Trump.
ABC News also posted footage matching the image of the Trumps casting their ballots in New York on Nov. 8, 2016. Trump defeated Clinton in the race, securing his first term as president.
Trump now lives and votes in Florida. He is expected to vote on Election Day despite saying he would vote early, the Associated Press reported.
Fact check: Trump name misspelled on voting machine review screen not 'election fraud'
Some commenters on the Instagram post questioned whether Trump's felony conviction in New York would preclude him from voting for himself in the Nov. 5 election.
Legal experts have said Trump will most likely be able to cast a ballot this year since Florida would only disallow Trump from voting in the state if his felony conviction barred him from voting in New York. Felons in New York lose their right to vote while they're incarcerated but regain it upon release.
"Trump has neither been sentenced to incarceration nor is he actually incarcerated," Blair Bowie, director of the Campaign Legal Center's Restore Your Vote project, previously told USA TODAY. "He has the right to vote in New York, so he has it in Florida. The only way he won't be able to vote is if he is actually in prison on Election Day."
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in his New York hush-money case on Nov. 26.
USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources:
CNN, Nov. 8, 2016, X post
Variety, Nov. 8, 2016, Photo of Donald Trump Peeking at Wife Melania Voting Goes Viral
ABC News (YouTube), Nov. 8, 2016, Donald Trump Votes with Melania, Ivanka | Election 2016
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Image of Trump voting predates 2024 presidential election | Fact check