Election Disinformation

Did Sean "Diddy" Combs pay Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff $500,000 for a tip that alerted him to the police raids that were about to search his homes in Florida and California, according to a video with an article? No, that's not true: The federal government announced that "Russian influence actors" manufactured the video. The article was published…

Are armed militias hunting Federal Emergency Management Agency employees in North Carolina? No, that's not true: Although federal and local authorities acknowledged rumors about armed militias in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene, no confirmed reports about such groups targeting FEMA employees exist. After pausing for what it termed a "potential threat" to its North Carolina staff, FEMA has resumed door-to-door…

Does a video show someone in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, destroying real mail-in ballots from voters who voted for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump? No, that's not true: The Bucks County Board of Elections, the Bucks County District Attorney and the Bucks County Republican Committee all confirmed the video is fake. The local GOP pointed out discrepancies in the filmed election…

Are 53 voters registered at an Erie, Pennsylvania, address where no one lives? No, that's not true: The address corresponds to a monastery. The Benedictine Sisters of Erie have said publicly that they live there. The claim appeared in an article (archived here) on X on October 22, 2024, on the official X account of Cliff Mahoney, leader of The…

Does a photo in an online article prove that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bought Hitler's Mercedes during his 2024 trip to the United States? No, that's not true: The article's image of the vehicle, supposedly in front of the Ukrainian presidential administration building, was digitally manipulated. The picture of this antique car has been online since 2018 and was first…

Did an announcement by U.S. intelligence officials that there's no foreign interference in U.S. elections through early September 2024 undermine the Department of Justice's indictment of alleged Russian operatives? No, that's not true: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated that there's no evidence of a "foreign actor" directly interfering in the process of conducting an election, while…

Did Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum hold up a menorah while making a speech? No, that's not true: The photo of Sheinbaum on X that shows her doing this has been edited. In the original photo, which dates back to 2017, her fist is raised high in the air, but she does not hold a menorah and is not wearing large…

When former President Barack Obama described a metaphorical plan in 2022 to "flood" the public square with "raw sewage," did he present it as either his own or as that of the Democratic Party? No, that's not true: He was describing how propaganda works, not what he or the party was planning to do. He said this in a speech…

Did Russian President Vladimir Putin say at a "military press conference in Russia" that the U.S. was planning to launch a second pandemic "aimed at disrupting the 2024 election" domestically? No, that's not true: Neither a viral AI-generated article making the claim nor earlier pieces speculating about it offered any proof that Putin actually said that. Lead Stories searched both…

Is the 2020 presidential election tally in Fulton County, Georgia invalid on account of 300,000 missing ballot images? No, that's not true: The original paper ballots still exist and it's important to understand that the ballot image is not the vote but merely an electronic picture of the ballot for review purposes. Georgia election officials recounted the vote, including counting…