[url=https://mic.com/articles/161840/no-hillary-clinton-did-not-get-more-votes-than-any-candidate-ever#.7Ao5bN25d]link[/url] [quote]You've probably seen this exultant headline going viral on Facebook: "Hillary Clinton Gets More Votes Than Any Candidate Ever." Not only did Hillary Clinton crush Donald Trump in the popular vote this year, she has now also won more votes for president than any candidate in the history of American presidential elections. Incredible! For anyone brokenhearted over the election results, it's an irresistible story. The milestone is a stunning achievement for Clinton. It's also additional fodder for a [url=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/15/1599912/-Hillary-Clinton-s-popular-vote-lead-breaks-1-million-and-the-lead-continues-grow-we-have-the-mandate]popular narrative among liberals[/url]: Clinton was not only America's preferred candidate — she smashed modern voting records. [b]The only problem? It's false. [/b] Hillary Clinton's tally of about [url=http://cookpolitical.com/story/10174]65.5 million votes[/url] is far short of Obama's 2008 intake of over [url=http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/federalelections2008.pdf]69 million votes[/url]. She's close to Obama's 2012 count of 65.9 million, according to the [url=http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2012/2012pres.pdf]Federal Election Commission[/url], but as of Friday, Clinton has decisively not gotten more votes than any candidate ever. Many people associate the fake news epidemic with ultra-conservative websites, branded with shoddy design and names like Truth Eagle Report, which vomit out [url=https://mic.com/articles/161405/terrorist-camps-in-america-obama-secret-islamic-isis-compounds-to-attack-donald-trump#.XgtJuG9BG]obvious hoaxes[/url] about Obama's allegiance to ISIS and the like. But this incident provides a bizarre look at the way more reputable websites can unwittingly participate in disseminating inaccurate news on either side of the aisle. [b]So where did the false story come from?[/b] The Yahoo piece that went viral happens to be a syndication of an International Business Times news story. On Thursday at 10 a.m., an IBT reporter covered Cook Political Report's electoral tracker showing Clinton's popular-vote count had reached 65.5 million. IBT published the article with the headline "Hillary Clinton Gets More Votes Than Any Candidate Ever," and the line, "Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has garnered at least 65,527,625 votes in the 2016 presidential election, the most any presidential candidate has ever received," with no evidence to back up the claim. The factoid fit into the narrative of Clinton's growing popular vote count and historic margin of victory while still losing the electoral college. [/quote]