Thousands of Trump supporters rioted at the United States Capitol building last month to overturn the results of the 2020 election -- but a CNN investigation has found that some of them didn't even bother to vote last year.
One such rioter was 50-year-old ex-Marine Donovan Crowl, who has been charged with storming the Capitol and who is affiliated with the Oath Keepers militia.
"Despite... apparent pro-Trump views, a county election official in Ohio told CNN that [Crowl] registered in 2013 but 'never voted nor responded to any of our confirmation notices to keep him registered,' reports CNN. "A county clerk in Illinois, where Crowl was once registered, also confirmed he was not an active voter anywhere in the state."
CNN found several other instances of Trump rioters who never bothered voting, including "a 65-year-old Georgia man" whom police "found in his van with a fully-loaded pistol and ammunition"; a Lousiana man who "publicly bragged about spending nearly two hours inside the Capitol" after attending the pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" rally; and "a 21-year-old woman from Missouri who prosecutors say shared a video on Snapchat that showed her parading around with a piece of a wooden sign from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office."
Jessica Stern, an expert on terrorism who teaches at Boston University, tells CNN that many of these Trump supporters may have not bothered to vote because they believed the president's rhetoric that the entire election had been rigged from the start.
Trump repeatedly throughout the 2020 campaign insisted that the election was being fraudulently conducted and he warned his supporters about the purported dangers posed by mail-in voting.