Maricopa County, Arizona

Did ink bleeding through ballots impact vote tallies in the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona? No, that's not true: Even if a voter's ballot marks do bleed through from one side of a ballot to another, they don't impact the tally, according to county officials. Officials point to the fact that the ballots have off-centered columns, so any potential…

Were over 74,000 more mail-in ballots received and counted than were mailed out for the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona? No, that's not true: County officials say the true tally shows there were 446,000 fewer mail-in votes than ballots sent out. They said the meme's claim relies on muddling all early votes: mailed ballots together with early voting ballots.…

Did One America News Network (OANN) report 254,000 "bad ballots" in Maricopa County, Arizona? No, that's not true: The claim, made by Sidney Powell, did not include any sourcing. Shortly after she made the claim, she walked it back. An election audit, commissioned by Republicans in the state Senate, was ongoing at the time this was written. The claim appeared…

Does this photo show that ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona, have watermarks? No, that's not true: The photo was first posted by Vernon Jones, a former state representative in Georgia who is running for governor in that state. His post says the photo shows ballots that Arizona officials are considering for use in future elections. The claim appeared in an…

Were a quarter of a million illegal votes found in the Arizona audit? No, that's not true: At the time of writing, April 27, 2021, no results from the audit commissioned by Republicans in the state Senate have been released. An exact release date is not known. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on April 26,…

Is the audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, confirming the rumor that a "special watermark is on the real ballots"? No, there's no evidence that's true: Maricopa County ballots do not have watermarks, according to a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Elections Department. Claims of such watermarks are related to a previously debunked conspiracy theory that some entity -- perhaps the…

Did Dominion have 70 attorneys in Arizona in April of 2021, trying to stop the audit of ballots from the 2020 election? No, that's not true: A post making the claim offered no sourcing to support it, and a spokesperson for Dominion Voting Systems said the company had no such team. "Dominion does not have a team of attorneys in…

Were ballots from the 2020 election found shredded and trashed in Maricopa County, Arizona? No, that's not true: The ballots cast in that election are safely sealed and stored in a vault, according to a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Elections Department. She said that "Maricopa County has not, and would never destroy voted ballots until legally authorized to do…

Did a Massachusetts engineer prove election software took Maricopa County, Arizona, votes from Donald Trump to give them to Joe Biden? No, that's not true. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on December 4, 2020, rejected Trump's challenge to election results there, saying the president's lawyers failed to present evidence of fraud, misconduct, erroneous tallies or illegal votes in Maricopa's…

Is a video discussing purported voter fraud in Arizona factual? No, it's not: The video contains falsehoods and unproven claims. Specifically, 35,000 votes were not added to Democratic candidates, as Lead Stories has previously reported, and there's no evidence that 1.9 million votes in Maricopa County are in jeopardy of being tossed because of signature verification issues. The county has…