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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Elections & voting fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about elections & voting. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

5,413 published reviews in this topic

dpaElections & voting

Statushouders mogen stemmen.

Publisher’s rating: Nee, dit is een geval van ontbrekende context. Statushouders mogen vandaag stemmen voor de waterschapsverkiezingen, maar niet voor de provinciale verkiezingen. Daarvoor is de Nederlandse nationaliteit nodig. Voor de waterschapsverkiezingen maakt nationaliteit niet uit, daar heb je stemrecht als je boven de 18 bent en in een waterschap woont. Het "oefenstemmen" van vorige week levert geen officiële stemmen op, en is dus niet geldig voor de verkiezingen van vandaag.

FACTLYElections & voting

Zee News report on the results of the exit polls of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Assembly elections

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a Zee News report about exit polls for the Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Assembly elections, presented on social media as recent. FACTLY says it checked the video’s subject and searched YouTube using relevant keywords to locate the original. That search led to a longer Zee News video with the title “Zee News Maha Exit Poll: Poll of exit polls put Congress ahead in Rajasthan.” The review identifies that original as uploaded to Zee News’s official YouTube channel on 7 December 2018, after the three states’ 2018 Assembly elections. It therefore places the circulating footage in the context of those earlier elections, rather than a new set of results. The review also says the states had not recently held Assembly elections and notes that the Election Commission had not yet released a schedule for their next elections. Its conclusion rests on the video’s provenance and the election period it covered: the old report was being shared as recent.

PA MediaElections & voting

The Tories were “only a handful of points” behind the Labour Party in the polls when Boris Johnson was forced out.

Publisher’s rating: Missing context: Mr Johnson announced his resignation on July 7 2022, when the weekly average of national opinion polls for the week ending July 10 2022 showed Labour on 42% and the Tories on 30% – a 12 point difference. Depending on your interpretation, 12 points may or may not be a “handful” but Mr Johnson’s claim overlooks the rising popularity of Labour and the waning popularity of the Tories during his premiership.

dpaElections & voting

Behalve JA21, kun je op geen enkele rechtse partij stemmen als Nederlander in het buitenland bij de aankomende verkiezingen. Dit is een poging tot fraude.

Publisher’s rating: De claim dat hier sprake is van fraude is onterecht. Er staan partijen uit het hele politieke spectrum op het stembiljet voor Nederlanders in het buitenland, van Forum voor Democratie tot GroenLinks. Partijen konden er zelf voor kiezen of zij ook verkiesbaar wilden zijn voor zogenaamde 'niet-ingezetenen'. Onder andere de PVV en BBB hebben er zelf voor gekozen zich niet verkiesbaar te stellen.

INFOVERITASElections & voting

Ayuso ha publicado en Twitter un vídeo de un acto de campaña del PP en el Zendal

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim is that Isabel Díaz Ayuso posted a video of a PP campaign event at the Zendal hospital in Madrid. INFOVERITAS reports that the viral post did not come from Ayuso’s official account: it was shared by a parody profile that used her name and image, but had a different handle. The article says the parody account’s biography identified it as fake. It distinguishes the official handle, @ldiazAyuso, from the parody account, @Idiazaquso. The video’s setting was also misidentified. INFOVERITAS says the footage came from a PP campaign event in Ibiza on 26 February 2023, not from the Zendal hospital. To check the footage, the article describes comparing it with similar images in a post by PP president Alberto Núñez Feijóo and checking the party’s agenda, which listed a PP event in Ibiza that day. It also cites local reporting that placed the event at Ibiza’s Recinto Ferial. The article says images of the venue published on the FECOEV website allowed it to compare the interior with the location shown in the viral video. Together, the account details and the venue comparison address the two central parts of the claim: who posted the video and where the filmed event took place.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturElections & voting

Die Ergebnisse der Berliner Landtagswahl 2023 wurden für ungültig erklärt.

Publisher’s rating: Der Screenshot ist irreführend. Der Tweet existiert wirklich. Allerdings handelt es sich bei dem von Lake verlinkten Artikel der «Deutschen Welle» um einen alten Bericht aus dem November 2022. Es gibt keine Hinweise darauf, dass die Ergebnisse der Wiederholungswahl 2023 ungültig sind.

The claim arose from a screenshot of a tweet by US politician Kari Lake, posted on 13 February 2023, with the headline “Berlin state elections declared void.” Because Berlin had held repeat elections the previous day, the screenshot could be read as saying that the 2023 results had been voided. The review finds that this reading confuses the linked article’s subject with the recent election: the article was published in November 2022 and concerned an earlier court decision, not the results of the February 2023 vote. The review describes checking the tweet against Lake’s account: its text and date matched the screenshot. Although the article’s preview image was no longer displayed, opening the Deutsche Welle article showed the same photograph as the screenshot’s lead image; the review identifies it as a dpa photographer’s image. The article’s headline was genuine, but its date and contents show why it did not establish that the 2023 election results had been annulled. The underlying court ruling came on 16 November 2022. Berlin’s state constitutional court had declared the September 2021 House of Representatives election and district elections invalid because of numerous voting problems and “serious systemic defects,” and ordered a complete rerun. That rerun took place on 12 February 2023. The review reports no indication that its results had been declared invalid; it says the official final result was still due to be formally established, with that step expected on 27 February 2023. It also notes that some postal ballots had to be added to the preliminary count, but does not present those incidents as evidence that the results were void.

dpaElections & voting

Verkiezingsfraude: Nederlanders in het buitenland kunnen bij de verkiezingen voor de Eerste Kamer niet stemmen op bepaalde partijen.

Publisher’s rating: Er is geen sprake van verkiezingsfraude. De BBB en de PVV hebben er zelf voor gekozen om niet verkiesbaar te zijn voor Nederlanders in het buitenland bij de aankomende verkiezingen, waarbij indirect op de Eerste Kamer wordt gestemd. Zij hebben zich niet geregistreerd voor de verkiezing voor het zogenaamde kiescollege niet-ingezetenen.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaElections & voting

පළාත් පාලන ඡන්දයේ නාමයෝජනා සියල්ල අවලංගු කළා ද?

Publisher’s rating: False

The review examined social-media posts claiming that all nominations for Sri Lanka’s local government election had been cancelled and that candidates would receive their deposits back. It traced the rumor to uncertainty about the election date and to a notice concerning postal voting. The review says the notice addressed the postponement of postal-vote marking because ballot papers had not been supplied on time; it announced that replacement dates would be given later, rather than cancelling nominations. (S1: “සමාජ මාධ්‍ය සටහන් : ‘නාමයෝජනා සියල්ල අවලංගුයි… අපේක්‍ෂකයන්ට ඇප මුදල් ආපසු ගෙවයි’”; “තැපැල් ඡන්ද පත්‍රිකා සලකුණු කිරීම අදාළ දිනවල නොකරන බවත්, නැවත සලකුණු කිරීමේ දිනය පසුව දැනුම් දෙන බවත් මැතිවරණ කොමසාරිස් ජනරාල් සමන් ශ්‍රී රත්නායක මහතා එහි සඳහන්කර තිබුණා.”) To check the cancellation claim, the review reports that it contacted Channa de Silva, the Election Commission’s Director of Planning and Research. According to the article, he said the report was false, that nominations remained valid until the rescheduled election, and that candidates had not been refunded their deposits. The review’s conclusion reiterates those points. (S1: “මැතිවරණ කොමිෂන් සභාවේ අධ්‍යක්ෂක (සැළසුම් හා පර්යේෂණ) ඒ මහතා සඳහන් කළේ, එම පුවත අසත්‍ය බවත්, මේ ආකාරයට නාමයෝජනා අවලංගු නොවන බවත්, මැතිවරණය කල් දැමූවත් නැවත මැතිවරණය පැවැත්වෙන දින දක්වා වලංගු බවත්, එබැවින් අපේක්ෂකයන්ට ඇප මුදල් ලබා දීමක් සිදුව නොමැති බවයි.”) The article also distinguishes the rumor from a separate, conditional discussion by delimitation commission chair Mahinda Deshapriya. He said nominations might be affected if proposed changes to the number of local-government members were approved, but expected that process to take months and believed the election would be held under the nominations already submitted. That possibility was not evidence that all nominations had already been cancelled. (S1: “යම්කිසි හෙයකින්, එම නිර්දේශ සම්මත වී, සභික සංඛ්‍යාව අඩු කළහොත්, පළාත්පාලන ආයතන ඡන්ද විමසීම පැවැත්වීමට සිදුවන්නේ, එම නව තත්ත්වයන් යටතේ බැවින් නාම යෝජනා එවැනි තත්ත්වයක දී අවලංගු විය හැකි බවත් ඒ මහතා පවසනවා.”; “ඊට පෙර, දැනට කැඳවා ඇති නාම යෝජනා යටතේම පළාත් පාලන ඡන්දය පවත්වනු ඇති බව තමා විශ්වාස කරන බවත්”)