Election Ballots

Did Arizona election officials say "we accidentally mixed un-counted votes with counted votes, maybe 15 to 17 thousand"? No, that's not true: The elections department spokesperson told Lead Stories that Maricopa County officials never said that and there is no record of news organizations reporting Arizona election officials saying that. The claim appeared as an Instagram post on November 17,…

Does a video showing people dropping off multiple ballots at one time in a drop box prove election fraud and what "really happened" in Arizona? No, that's not true: Delivering more than one ballot for other voters is legal in Arizona. Individuals can return someone else's ballot if they are a relative, share a household or are a caretaker, a…

Does the southeast Asian country of Myanmar use the same voting machines as the United States in its elections? No, that's not true: According to a spokesperson for the Asian Network for Free Elections, a non-governmental organization that works to promote democracy in Asia, Myanmar has not used voting machines in its elections at all. The claim, which has also…

Does a "bunch of bags" randomly arriving at the Maricopa County, Arizona, counting center prove that election fraud occurred there? No, that's not true: The black canvas bags in the image are used to transport voted ballots and results from vote centers on Election Day. The bags are heavily secured and under constant surveillance by members of both the Democratic…

Did Maricopa County, Arizona ballots make a stop with no observers at "Runbeck Printing Company" to be sorted before they were sent to the county for counting? No, that's not true: The claim was made without direct evidence. Maricopa County's spokesperson said bipartisan teams of election workers took sealed envelope packets to Runbeck Election Services, where envelope signatures are scanned…

Did garbage collectors "from L.A. County California, to Chavez County New Mexico," find "thousands of midterm ballots" in the trash before the 2022 midterm elections? No, that's not true: The photos used in this claim are from news articles from 2020. Both photos indicated that U.S. postal mail had been diverted from its standard route, but neither photo was from…

Does a viral video show election workers in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, commiting voter fraud in November 2022? No, that's not true: This exact video and claim were previously debunked in 2020. The election worker shown was manually transcribing damaged ballots, Delaware County officials said. No proof has emerged that the two individuals featured were not adhering to the Pennsylvania election…

Were "poll pads" in Texas caught adding "hundreds" of voters in real time as a poll was being closed? No, that's not true: The state-certified Election Systems & Software (ES&S) voting systems e-pollbooks in Dallas County, Texas, previously experienced "some delay in the downloading" of checked-in voters and then caught up, according to the Texas Secretary of State. "The updating…

Did a Republican poll watcher in Arizona have access to voter check-in information where she claims to have seen evidence that 200 extra ballots were counted? No, that's not true: The Maricopa County Elections Department told Lead Stories that "[p]olitical [p]arty observers do not have access to voter check-in data," plus "there are processes in place every election to reconcile…

Do large downticks in cumulative voting graphs for the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate and governor's races prove election fraud? No, that's not true: Edison Research, which supplies election data to news organization websites, told Lead Stories that the downticks shown by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell on social media and on his Frank Speech website -- totaling tens of thousands of…