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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.

5,414 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYElections & voting

Video of Samajwadi Party supporters inciting violence in Etawah after the UP Election results of 2022

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video presented as showing Samajwadi Party supporters inciting violence in Etawah after the Uttar Pradesh election results in March 2022. FACTLY’s investigation identifies the footage instead with a clash during the July 2021 nomination process for the Dubulia Block Chief post in Basti district. Its review says the video “has nothing to do with the 2022 UP Elections.” To trace the footage, the review reports using reverse image searches of screenshots. It found similar visuals on social media dating back to at least July 2021, then located the same video in a tweet by Samajwadi Party leader Rajesh Yadav dated 9 July 2021. Yadav described it as a rally supporting candidate Talewan Yadav in Dubulia. The review also says that articles published at the time reported violence between Samajwadi Party and BJP supporters during the nomination process. The review further reports that Etawah Police identified the circulating footage as an old video from Dubulia, Basti, and said no such violent incident had recently occurred in Etawah. Taken together, the footage’s earlier appearance and its identification with a different district and event undermine the claim’s attribution to post-election violence in Etawah.

FACTLYElections & voting

‘ఉత్తరప్రదేశ్ ఎన్నికల్లో ఎంఐఎం పార్టీకి 22.3 లక్షల ఓట్లు వచ్చాయి’ ; ‘సమాజ్‌వాదీ పార్టీ 82 అసెంబ్లీ స్థానాల్లో 500 లోపు ఓట్లతో, 81 అసెంబ్లీ స్థానాల్లో 1000 లోపు ఓట్లతో ఓడిపోయింది.’

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLYElections & voting

Video shows BJP rigging the 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video circulated as evidence that the BJP rigged the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. FACTLY’s review identifies the footage as coming from a different election: municipal elections in West Bengal. It reports that the video shows an agent casting votes for other people at booth 106 in ward 33 of South Dumdum municipality, rather than showing the claimed event in Uttar Pradesh. To investigate the footage’s provenance, the review says it performed a reverse image search on screenshots from the video using relevant keywords. That search located the same visuals on the YouTube channel TV9BanglaLive. The review reports that the channel uploaded the video on 27 February 2022 and described it as footage from West Bengal’s 2022 local body elections. The review further places the footage at a booth in ward 33 of South Dumdum Municipality, at Lakeview school, and notes that BJP and Congress accounts in West Bengal later shared the same visuals while accusing the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Those later partisan accusations do not change the reported location or establish that the footage depicts BJP activity in Uttar Pradesh. The central evidence therefore contradicts the video’s claimed setting and attribution.

FACTLYElections & voting

In UP elections, Congress party has lost with a narrow margin of 500 – 1000 votes in 167 seats

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim is specifically that Congress candidates lost by 500–1,000 votes in 167 seats in Uttar Pradesh. FACTLY checks it against the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results, citing Election Commission of India (ECI) information. The review says the viral post’s figure of 167 does not match the official count of constituencies decided by fewer than 1,000 votes: “there are only 15 assembly seats wherein the winning margin is below 1000 votes and not 167 seats as claimed in the viral post.” The review further checks which parties’ candidates were runners-up in those close contests. It reports that “none of these 15 trailing candidates represent the Congress party” and says the runners-up were candidates from either the Samajwadi Party alliance or the BJP. Thus, the set of close-margin losses described in the claim does not consist of Congress candidates. FACTLY also considers Congress’s second-place finishes separately: it reports that the party came second in four seats, and that even those losses were by margins much larger than the range in the post. The review’s conclusion rests on these distinctions—15 total constituencies with sub-1,000-vote margins, no Congress runners-up among them, and only four Congress second-place finishes with larger margins—rather than on the claim’s asserted 167 narrow losses.

Fact CrescendoElections & voting

Claim: old video being shared now as bjp paid voters for not voting in uttar pradesh

Publisher’s rating: PARTLY FALSE

Fact Crescendo investigated a video being shared with the claim that BJP members in Uttar Pradesh had paid voters ₹500 to stay home instead of voting. The review says the footage was not new: it was from 2019, and was being recirculated in connection with the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly election. The review identified News18 branding in the video and said it found earlier reports about the incident. The event described in those reports was in Chandauli constituency. Some residents alleged that BJP members gave them ₹500 and told them not to vote. The review also reproduced an ANI post dated May 19, 2019, which said residents of Tara Jivanpur village alleged that three local men had forcibly inked their fingers and paid them the previous day. The post attributes to residents the claim that the men were from the BJP and told them they could no longer vote. The review’s conclusion is therefore about the misleading presentation of old footage as current: it says the video showed an incident reported in 2019, not an event established as having occurred during the 2022 election. The excerpt does not establish that the allegations about payment and forced inking were independently verified; it presents them as residents’ allegations reported at the time.