Post wrongly implies image shows Trump voting in 2024 | Fact check

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.
More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page
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.
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.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.
USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.