The Ithacan has taken down a commentary titled “Republicans were the true winners in this election,” written by senior Michael Deviney, president of IC Republicans, from its website. 

In that commentary, Deviney’s description of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election presented as facts a number of demonstrably false statements regarding voter fraud as the grounds for his opinions. 

President Donald Trump and Republican allies have been attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results by using claims of voter fraud as a political tool. However, these claims of wide-spread voter fraud are not substantiated. While there have been some instances of voter fraud, it is extremely rare. 

The commentary was published with the intention of sharing a campus community member’s opinion regarding the Republican party during this election. The Ithacan holds itself to a high standard of accuracy, and it is our policy to fact-check all content in the paper — including commentary submissions — and work with writers to meet that standard. We regret that we failed to perform due diligence in this case. This was an egregious oversight in the editing process.

It is in no way our intention to suppress the opinion expressed in Deviney’s piece. The commentary has been taken down to avoid the further spread of false information, and the author has been asked to address the untrue statements in the piece, by either substantiating them, correcting them or removing them. The piece will then be republished.

The Ithacan aims to be a source for reliable and trustworthy information across all of its sections. While The Ithacan values including a diversity of opinions, it was wrong to publish baseless and dangerous claims, especially when fake news is present at every turn, and our readers were quick to let us know it. We appreciate that. The Ithacan editorial board acknowledges this error and apologizes to its readers.