'Embarrassing fail': NY Times roasted for quoting severed finger fraudster in poll writeup

The New York Times is taking heavy mockery after inadvertently citing a nationally famous convicted fraudster as an everyday voter.

The paper profiled some voters in their latest poll with Siena College released on Thursday, which shows former President Donald Trump's lead shrinking considerably and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a neck-and-neck race. One of the voters they quoted, however, wasn't swayed by the shakeup in the race.

"'I'm a Democrat, but I've changed my mind after everything that's happened with Joe Biden's administration,' said Anna Ayala, a 58-year-old who lives in San Jose, Calif., and voted for Mr. Biden in 2020," said the writeup. "She plans to vote for Mr. Trump in 2024. 'I mean, the border situation is out of control.'"

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There's just one problem, pointed out Gilad Edelman, a senior editor for The Atlantic: "Anna Ayala" is more than just some random voter off the street. In fact, a little over a decade ago she became a household name nationwide after she was convicted of fraud and sent to prison for planting a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili, then trying to sue the restaurant over it.

This passage was swiftly deleted from the Times writeup after going to print — but not before commenters on social media had noticed, and thoroughly mocked the paper's failure to check who they were quoting.

"Well, it would explain why she doesn’t want to vote for a prosecutor," wrote Bloomberg Opinion columnist Conor Sen.

"OMG this is almost certainly the same person," wrote the account @langdongrant2. "Correct age (58) & city (San Jose, CA). The NYT says she's a former Dem & 2020 Biden voter who's now for Trump, without telling readers that she's a nutty *convicted fraudster*. What a *massively* embarrassing fail for the NYT."

"The nonstop coverage of this when I was 9 is one of my core memories," wrote the account @_MarkThompson.

"It isn’t even hard to find — she is all over the internet as the finger fraud lady. Why is the nyt doing the national enquirer’s work for them," wrote the account @feral_hattie.

"The craziest thing about this is that the @NYTimes has fact checking resources to look into these people. Something like this should not make it into an NYT article. And yet..." wrote Emily Singer of The American Independent.

"In the words of a wise friend, 'Always ask your interview subjects if they’ve used a severed finger to defraud a fast food chain. That’s journalism 101'" wrote the account @rdnarang.