2024 Presidential Election

Recognizing false claims and fake videos shared on social media is a challenge for U.S. voters as the 2026 midterm elections approach. That is why Lead Stories and several other fact-checking organizations active in North America are joining forces in a first-of-its-kind collaboration: a joint newsletter sharing their best election-related work. It features an overview of fact check articles that…

Does a real order from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts allow Donald Trump to seek "four additional years" as president? No, that's not true: A search of the Supreme Court of the United States' docket found no order bearing the number shown in the fake document. Supreme Court orders are public records. While portions of a case file may…

Did the United States have an election with 133 million registered voters in which 159 million votes were cast? No, that's not true: Official government figures for national elections do not support that claim. More than 158 million Americans cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election, but more than 168 million were registered to vote. The claim appeared in a…

Did German Chancellor Friedrich Merz use $550 million of state funds to build a private "doomsday" plane? No, that's not true: There is no credible evidence or proof that Merz commissioned a fortified warplane. The website that published the article was registered one day before the publication of the story and is not an established media organization. An online detection…

Is a video showing a Politico report claiming Germany is preparing to take in 400,000 Palestinian refugees real? No, that's not true: There are no reports from Politico or any other news organization that Germany plans to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees, Palestinian or otherwise. In addition, an online AI detection tool determined that the audio in the…

Has Tina Peters been "fully pardoned" by Donald Trump, wiping out her prison sentence for giving unauthorized access to Mesa County, Colorado, voting machines in 2021, when she was county clerk? No, that's not true: Trump's "pardon" of Peters is only symbolic, not official. The U.S. Constitution grants the President power to pardon only those criminals facing federal charges. Peters,…

Does a video show Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, reacting to the $50M bounty announced August 7, 2025 by the US Department of State by challenging the Trump administration to come and get him at the presidential palace? No, that is NOT true: The video shows Maduro giving a speech on July 30th, 2024, after a self-declared victory in the presidential…

Did Democratic nominee and then-sitting Vice President Kamala Harris get 68 million votes in 2024? No, that's not true: In reality, she got more than 75 million, according to data on the Federal Election Commission website. That's fewer than Joe Biden's 2020 total of 81 million, but 7 million more than is claimed by a viral meme. The claim appeared…

Did The Economic Times article that declared Kamala Harris won the 2024 election cite reports that concluded voting systems were rigged for Donald Trump? No, that's not true: The reports referred to by The Economic Times all stop short of declaring the election was stolen. Instead, those writers whom The Economic Times cited said there are questions about software and…

Was the latest book by Kamala Harris yanked from the shelves after it was found to be 30% plagiarized? No, that's not true: The former vice president has authored three books as of June 2025, including the last two published in 2019. Each of those books is still available for purchase online and in bookstores. Her first book, which was…