Hoft

Do allegedly discovered "dozens of boxes" with "zero Bolsonaro votes" offer evidence confirming election fraud in Brazil? No, that's not true: Brazil doesn't use paper ballots -- voters cast ballots electronically. The claim appeared a tweet (archived here) published on November 7, 2022. It said: Update from Brazilian leaders: Military audit of the election will now be released Wednesday. Dozens…

Does this video show Russian tanks abandoned in the Kharkiv Region during the September 2022 Ukrainian counteroffensive that overran Russian positions in northeastern Ukraine? No, that's not true: Lead Stories has corroborated open-source investigators' use of Google Maps satellite images to identify the long industrial building as being on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, more than 300 miles distant from Ukraine's…

Are COVID-19 vaccines 98 times worse than the virus itself? No, that's not true: There's no evidence to suggest that getting sick with coronavirus is a better option for the population as a whole than the benefits of immunization. While a pre-print (non-peer-reviewed) draft of an article discusses the ethics of vaccine booster mandates for university students and their possible…

Does a newly discovered video show late-night deliveries of illegal ballots in Detroit, Michigan? No, that's not true: The ballots were legal votes. The 8 p.m. Election Day deadline was for casting ballots not counting them. The Michigan secretary of state's office told Lead Stories that what took place was "standard and appropriate practice." The claim appeared in an article…

Were ballots used in Republican areas of Georgia different from ballots used in Democratic areas of the state, resulting in a rigged election? No, that's not true: A purported elections expert -- who the Georgia secretary of state's office described as a "failed treasure hunter" -- claimed that since ballots have a unique bar code for each precinct, that "caused…

Were 23,000 "fraudulent" ballots for Joe Biden identified in Georgia? No, there's no evidence that's true. An article making that claim cites as its source a video on YouTube, which relies on unofficial results reported in real time. State election officials have repeatedly defended the integrity of the vote. "We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the…

Did a glitch in the Rock County, Wisconsin, vote-counting system swap Donald Trump's votes for Joe Biden's, giving Biden the lead and ultimately the win in that county? No, that's not true: The Associated Press erred in collection and transmission of Rock County tallies. The error made it temporarily seem like Trump had gotten Biden's 46,649 votes and Biden had…

Does data analysis show that an election software supplier deleted 2.7 million Trump votes and switched 435,000 votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden? No, that's not true. The states using Dominion Voting Systems software have reported that minor hiccups in the vote-tallying process were the result of user errors, were corrected by the bipartisan "canvassing" system and would not…

Has a browser bookmark label and the "XRVision Sentinel AI Platform" proved that bloggers found a PornHub account belonging to Hunter Biden that contains images of a family member without her knowledge and permission? No, that's not true. Labels on bookmarks saved in a web browser contain no unique identifying information and the owner of the "XRVision" platform has not…

Did Crip gang members volunteer to fight wildfires because they turn the sky red? No, that's not true: The claim was apparently intended as a joke at a time when serious wildfires were devastating millions of acres, forcing massive evacuations and killing people in western states. It used elements from a real CNN story about Russia to make a meme…