Politics

Do midterm election graphs of unofficial, private election tallies used by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell on social media and on his Frank Speech website prove 2022 elections were stolen? No, that's not true: Spikes in the vote counts are a normal part of clean elections. A Lindell ally said he scraped and graphed data that Edison Research supplies to…

Will Michigan Proposal 2 give "violent felons" the right to vote from prison? No, that's not true: The proposal, which was on the state's ballot and passed during the 2022 midterm election, does not affect imprisoned people's ability to vote. Rather, it amends Michigan's Constitution to add various voting rights that are unrelated to prisoners. The claim appeared in a…

Did President Joe Biden's term start immediately after the 2020 election was called, thus influencing Donald Trump's decision to announce a second presidential bid for 2024? No, that's not true: Biden was not formally sworn into office until the presidential inauguration on January 20, 2021, as the Constitution mandates. The 2020 presidential election was certified on January 7, 2021, after…

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…

Did Fulton County, Georgia, election officials fire a mother and son hired as poll workers because the mom posted a tweet on the morning of the election saying she was "working at the polls to ensure a free and fair election?" No, that's not true: Laura Kronen and her son were sent home from the Johns Creek, Georgia, polling station…

Does a social media video demonstrate how to cast a fraudulent vote online in Washington state's King County, home to the greater Seattle area? No, that's not true: The county has an online system that allows voters to mark their ballots, but it doesn't record votes, a county spokesperson told Lead Stories. Ballots must still be printed, signed and returned…

Did a Pennsylvania judge's ruling allow mail-in ballots to be accepted and counted up until November 14, 2022? No, that's not true: According to the Pennsylvania Department of State, mail-in ballots must be received by the voter's respective county election office by November 8, 2022, at 8 p.m. EST. The tweet was originally posted on November 8, 2022, but later…

Are Dominion voting machines in Pennsylvania "rigged for election theft," depending on whether a voter uses a Sharpie, pen or pencil? No, that's not true: The claims are not backed by any evidence and are unsubstantiated. Both Dominion and the Pennsylvania Department of State say the voting systems are designed to work with various writing implements that may be used…

Does Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez currently have a "$29,000,000" net worth? No, that's not true: Her most recent and publicly available financial disclosure report revealed that her assets are much less than a million dollars. The claim appeared in an Instagram post on November 6, 2022. The text in the meme post, above an image of Ocasio-Cortez, reads: #AOC was $8k…

Does having Wi-Fi networks available at polling places mean voting machines are connected to the internet? No, that's not true: An expert told Lead Stories that assuming that the existence of a Wi-Fi network means that nearby voting machines are connected to it is incorrect. The claim appeared in an Instagram post on November 8, 2022. It opened: 👍 ATTENTION…

Did 16 million registered voters in New Mexico "drop overnight," within a 24-hour window before Election Day? No, that's not true: A spokesperson for the New Mexico secretary of state's office, which helps administer elections, confirmed that the secretary of state's website had shown mock data while undergoing testing before the November 8 vote. A notice on the website, however,…

Did the Federal Reserve put up "walls" outside its building, possibly in anticipation of unrest? No, that's not true: The Federal Reserve is planning to renovate and expand two of its buildings in Washington, D.C. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) on November 6, 2022. The tweet reads: The Federal Reserve Just Put Up Walls ... Everything is…

Was the fact that Maricopa County, Arizona, experienced trouble with some of its tabulators early on Election Day proof of voter fraud? No, that's not true: There was a back-up plan in place to make sure every vote was counted. In the case of a problem with a precinct tabulator, a voter could place his or her ballot in a…

Did billionaire philanthropist George Soros fund the purchase of voting machines in order to rig the 2022 midterm elections? No, that's not true: Elections are funded by taxpayer dollars and Soros has no connections to voting machine or voting software companies. The claim appeared in a November 6, 2022, Instagram post that uses a long string of hashtags for a…

Were Republicans blocked from voting in a polling station? No, that's not true: A social media video that implies this claim is from the Texas primary election that took place in March 2022. Voting officials from each party are responsible for running their side of each voting location. A lack of Republican voting officials at the location filmed caused the…

Do videos show a voting machine at a New York polling place disregarding a voter's selections -- even though he made an effort to darken the selected circles? No, that's not true: The terminal pictured in the video is an AutoMARK assistive ballot marking device (BMD); it is not a tabulator for marked ballots. This terminal is designed to assist…

Has California perfected ballot harvesting? No, that's not true: California Secretary of State Communications Director Joe Kocurek told Lead Stories that the multiple claims about ballots in a social media post are false. Political parties do not send out ballots in California. All ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, not three days later, and voters are asked to provide…

Did Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who recently lost his reelection bid in a fiercely contested runoff, declare martial law on November 2, 2022? No, that's not true: A fake presidential decree circulating on social media that makes this declaration does not exist. It bears an out-of-sequence number and is not in Brazil's official language of Portuguese. While Bolsonaro had not…

Does GPS data from voters' cellphones help election fraudsters identify those who were registered but did not vote so the fraudsters can cast illegal ballots in the name of those people? Should voters avoid bringing cellphones to polling places on Election Day for this reason? No, that's not true: Election workers most commonly rely on voters' signatures to verify absentee…

Does this video show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi being detained or arrested by U.S. marshals? No, that's not true: This is video of Pelosi leaving her home in San Francisco and getting into a GM Suburban SUV with a small security detail on October 30, 2022, as an onlooker shouts out, "Speaker, how's your husband doing?" The question referred to…