Did people really vote for the Hawk Tuah girl in the US election?

Viral sensation "Hawk Tuah girl" - real name Hailey Welch - has been mentioned in an online post claiming that she received 75,000 votes in the presidential election last week.

But is this actually true?

For those out of the loop, Welch became an overnight star when she was asked in a street interview: “What’s one move in bed that makes a man go crazy every time?” To Welch replied with her recognisable catchphrase: “You gotta give him that ‘hawk tuah’ and spit on that thang.”

The political rumour first started floating around on the internet the day after the election (November 6) when we all learned that Donald Trump had won to become the President-elect.

YouTube/Talk Tuah with Haliey Welch

It came in the form of an apparent CNN article with a screenshot that circulated on X, formerly Twitter, of the alleged news story with the headline “Over 75,000 of the counted votes were write-ins for ‘Hawk Tuah’ and ‘Talk Tua,’” the latter referring to Welch's podcast.

The post on X has received over 773,000 views, and 11,000 likes, with people sharing their dismay and disgust at people supposedly voting for Welch.

One person wrote: "I wish every American citizen who has the right to vote took it seriously. Voting is not for 'memes' or 'to go viral' it’s to determine the future of our country and its citizens. People are unbelievable."

"I think it’s time to do away with the write-in option because our society has become too unserious in actual serious situations," another person said.

Someone else added: "Not sure how anyone can find this funny. Is the safety of women and the lgbtq+ community a joke to you lot??? this is so embarrassing. America never ceases to amaze me with its idiocy."

"The fact that people would much rather troll vote instead of actually voting for Trump and Kamala actually says a lot lol," a fourth person commented.

However, this story isn't actually real.

In fact, if you look at the original X post that shared the alleged screenshot of the story it has a community note underneath which flags this to users.

"Readers added context: There is no such article written by Stephen Collinson for CNN, or any article with this title on the site itself," the note read.

It then also has the link to the CNN profile for the author alleged to have written the article and a quick visit to the page can confirm there isno such story.

So if you see this floating around on your feed, or if someone mentions this story - now you know it has been debunked.

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