MAGA influencer torched for ‘harassing’ 86-year-old woman with false election fraud claim

MAGA influencer Nick Shirley recorded himself confronting a woman at her home in a video published online Sunday regarding his baseless claims of voter fraud in California, but on Tuesday, a Democratic strategist bluntly pointed out an apparent flaw in Shirley’s latest probe.

Shirley, the “pro-Trump” YouTuber whose unsubstantiated investigation into alleged fraud in Minnesota perpetrated by Somalians was bolstered by the Trump administration, uploaded a video of himself confronting a woman apparently named “Doris” who he claimed, according to the California Secretary of State’s office, was listed as being 126 years old and having voted in 51 elections.

The video shows Shirley questioning the woman about her age and voting history, which the woman disputed and told Shirley she was in her mid-80s. Shirley is seen in the video trying to show the woman documents, which she refused.

The issue with Shirley’s investigation, Democratic strategist Tom Bonier noted on Tuesday, is that he demonstrated a basic misunderstanding of how California manages its voter registration database, known as VoteCal.

VoteCal was built using Microsoft SQL Server, a database management system. As such, any errors in input data that relate to dates, such as birthdays, may produce the system’s default value of Jan. 1, 1900. As suggested by Bonier, the aforementioned fluke is likely why the woman’s age was allegedly listed as 126.

“This dips--- discovered that SQL server at one point replaced blank date of birth fields with a default of 01/01/1900, so he harassed an 86 year old woman,” Bonier wrote Tuesday in a social media post on X to his more than 110,000 followers.

And yet, despite Bonier pointing out the potential flaw in Shirley’s investigation, the claim was still promoted by a swarm of right-wing influencers, including Tesla CEO and Trump-ally Elon Musk.