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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

Les opposants au futur président brésilien Lula participent à une grande manifestation sur la plage de Copacabana à Rio de Janeiro.

Publisher’s rating: La vidéo n’a pas été tournée lors d’une manifestation « anti-Lula ». Il s’agit d’un rassemblement ayant eu lieu pendant les célébrations du jour de l’Indépendance brésilienne, en septembre 2022.

The claim concerned footage of a crowded beach said to show opponents of Brazil’s then-future president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, demonstrating in response to his election. The investigation identifies the location as Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, but says the footage does not depict an anti-Lula protest: it shows a gathering during Brazil’s Independence Day bicentennial events on September 7, 2022. The review describes the footage as having circulated on Twitter on November 4, 2022, and says it was therefore not current footage of a post-election protest. To check the event’s identity, the review reports comparing the video with material from a local newspaper, Getty Images, and the Guardian. Those sources showed the same crowd and installations at the beach. The review also says the Guardian described Bolsonaro using the gathering to build momentum for his presidential campaign and that supporters attended. Thus, the crowd’s presence at a politically charged national event does not establish that it was assembled to oppose Lula after his election. The chronology further distinguishes the gathering from the election: the bicentennial celebrations occurred before the presidential election, which Lula won in October 2022; he was due to begin his term on January 1, 2023. The review concludes that the video shows an earlier Independence Day gathering, not a demonstration against the future president.

Folha de S.PauloElections & voting

Quatro vídeos que circulam nas redes sociais mostram eleitores tentando acessar os dados da votação de suas respectivas seções eleitorais no site do TSE. No entanto, o número de nenhuma das seções aparece na plataforma. Os casos são de dois eleitores que votaram no exterior (em Toronto, no Canadá, e em Miami, nos Estados Unidos) e dois que votaram no Brasil (em Colíder, em Mato Grosso, e Passos, em Minas Gerais). Nos vídeos, os cidadãos alegam que os votos não foram computados e que, portanto, teria havido fraude no pleito.

Publisher’s rating: Enganoso

The review examined four social-media videos in which voters in Toronto and Miami, and in Colíder and Passos in Brazil, said their polling-section numbers could not be found on the TSE results platform and took this to mean their votes had not been counted. The investigation reported that the TSE gave a different explanation: those polling sections had been combined with other sections, so the results platform did not display them separately. The review says this practice was used to consolidate sections with few voters and reduce operating costs. To investigate, the review says it searched for reports of voters alleging that their votes had not been counted, contacted the electoral authorities in Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso and the Federal District, and questioned the TSE. The authorities’ explanations, as presented in the review, distinguish the absence of a section’s number in a search from the absence of its votes: the site and Results app display the main sections, while votes from aggregated sections are recorded with those sections. The review gives concrete examples: Passos section 0292 was combined with section 0316, and Colíder section 0036 with section 0034. For the videos from abroad, it reports that Toronto section 1212 was combined with 1031, while Miami section 3345 was combined with 1346, which operated in Orlando. Thus, the missing standalone section numbers did not establish that the votes had disappeared or were uncounted; the review attributes that appearance to the aggregation arrangement.

dpaElections & voting

La police fédérale civile et militaire a envahi le Congrès national brésilien pour protester contre la fraude électorale.

Publisher’s rating: Les mouvements de protestation dans la vidéo ne sont pas d’actualité. Les premières images ont été filmées en 2017 lors d’une manifestation de la police brésilienne contre un plan de réforme des retraites, tandis que les autres montrent une action anti-corruption en 2016. Elles n’ont donc pas de lien avec les récentes élections.

dpaElections & voting

Cette vidéo montre une manifestation du peuple brésilien contre la fraude électorale le 12/11/22.

Publisher’s rating: Les images datent de septembre 2021, et non de novembre 2022. Il ne peut donc pas s’agir d’une manifestation en rapport avec les résultats de l’élection présidentielle de cette année.

The claim attached an overhead video of a large crowd in Brazilian colors to an alleged 12 November 2022 protest in Brasília against election fraud. The review says the video was not filmed in November 2022, so it could not show a protest connected to the results of that year’s presidential election. It identifies the actual gathering as an Independence Day event on 7 September 2021, when Jair Bolsonaro had called on supporters to take to the streets in support of him. (The review states: “Une manifestation d’une ampleur « sans précédent » se serait déroulée le 12 novembre 2022 à Brasilia, la capitale brésilienne, pour protester contre ce qui est qualifié par certains de fraude électorale.” “La vidéo montre en fait une foule rassemblée à l’occasion du Jour de l’indépendance du Brésil, le 7 septembre 2021. Jair Bolsonaro avait appelé ses partisans à descendre dans les rues pour lui marquer leur soutien.”) The review supports its identification with two comparisons. First, it reports that the same video had circulated on social media in September 2021, when it was used for a different claim about a crowd protesting Covid-19 measures; versions were already circulating then, making a November 2022 recording impossible. Second, it locates the filmed scene in Brasília by identifying the Palácio Itamaraty in the video, and says that details including blue tents match photographs of the 2021 event. The footage is therefore from the claimed city, but its date and context were misrepresented. (The review states: “Cette même vidéo avait déjà fait l’objet d’une vérification de la part de l’équipe de la dpa aux Pays-Bas, en septembre 2021.” “Plusieurs versions de la vidéo circulaient déjà sur les réseaux sociaux à cette période, comme ici et ici sur Twitter. Il est donc impossible que les images aient été tournées en novembre 2022.” “À 00:29 dans la vidéo, on reconnaît notamment sur la gauche le bâtiment du Palácio Itamaraty, situé près de l’Esplanade des ministères, dans la capitale brésilienne.” “En comparant la vidéo avec d’autres photos de l’évènement diffusées à l’époque, on reconnaît plusieurs éléments distinctifs, comme les tentes bleues.”)

dpaElections & voting

Deze beelden tonen een Braziliaans protest tegen de verkiezingsuitslag.

Publisher’s rating: De beelden stammen uit september 2021 en kunnen dus onmogelijk protest tegen de verkiezingsuitslag in 2022 tonen.

The claim concerned a video of a crowd in Brasília, Brazil, presented as footage of protests against the result of the October 2022 election. The review notes that the video itself was shared with a caption suggesting protests were continuing day after day, and that text on screen said it had been recorded in Brasília on 12 November 2022. That framing would place it after the election, but the review found the date was wrong. The review says dpa had already checked the same footage in September 2021, when it was being shared with a different claim: that it showed a protest against a vaccine passport. It also reports finding multiple versions of the video online that were at least a year old. These earlier appearances establish that the footage predated the 2022 election and therefore could not show a protest against its result. To identify the location and date, the review points to a visible landmark: at 0:29, the flat roof of the Palácio Itamaraty in Brasília appears on the left. It then compares elements in the video, including blue tents, with a photograph posted on Twitter and a photograph in an article. The review identifies the footage as showing 7 September 2021, during Brazil’s Independence Day, and describes the gathering as a demonstration by Bolsonaro supporters. The location was consistent with the on-screen claim, but the date and the asserted connection to the 2022 election were not.

El Detector / Univision NoticiasElections & voting

"Así que en el condado de Maricopa están en ello de nuevo. Las máquinas de votación en gran número no funcionaron, pero solo en los distritos republicanos".

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerned voting-machine problems in Maricopa County, Arizona, during the November 8, 2022, midterm elections. Donald Trump asserted that machines failed only in Republican districts and that this kept Republican voters from voting. The investigation distinguishes between whether machines did fail and whether the failures were confined to Republican areas: it acknowledges reported malfunctions, but says the asserted partisan pattern was false. To check the partisan claim, El Detector contacted Megan Gilbertson, communications director for the county elections department, asking about the machine failures and whether they occurred “only” in Republican districts. The article reports that Gilbertson directed the outlet to a Washington Post analysis comparing the affected polling places with the county overall. That analysis found that registered Republicans made up 37% of voters in affected precincts, compared with 35% countywide. The figures do not support the claim that failures were concentrated exclusively in Republican districts. The review also supplies context about what happened to ballots: it says failures began when polling places opened on November 8 and that officials said every vote would be counted. It reports that the county reiterated this on November 12, including a message that “all legal votes will be counted.” The article’s conclusion is therefore about the unsupported claim of an exclusively Republican impact, not a claim that no machines malfunctioned.