LeBron James fired back at a digital ad campaign for misconstruing one of his tweets about voter suppression, writing on Twitter Friday: “Nobody should be able to use my name (or anyone else name) to lie and deceive about the election.”
James was addressing a story in the Washington Post about a website called Protect My Vote which, according to the report, has been circulating ads on Facebook that paint mail-in voting as unreliable.
One of the Facebook posts features a June tweet from James where he called polling closures in Kentucky a sign of “SYSTEMATIC RACISM and OPPRESSION.” The Facebook post misconstrues the tweet, suggesting that James was linking the closures to the expansion of mail-in voting ahead of this year’s general election.
Longtime advisor to James, Adam Mendelsohn, told the Post that the ads were “shameless” and “reprehensible,” saying lawyers were examining the matter. James also wrote on Twitter Friday that they’re “Not sure what we can do legally but definitely trying to figure it out!”
James has been vocal about the issue of voter suppression. In June he helped launch a nonprofit organization called More Than a Vote, which seeks to both energize Black voters and expose voter suppression tactics, such as misinformation spread through social media.
