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 the lack of the presidential seal on a podium from which Joe Biden spoke mean he's not really president? No, that's not true: Biden is the president of the United States. There is no requirement that presidents speak with the seal and it is not uncommon for them to appear without it when they are speaking in a "100%…
Lead Stories is a U.S. based fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or
inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.
