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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

Photos show the crowd at Modi’s recent (March 2021) election rally in West Bengal

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns photos circulated as showing the crowd at Narendra Modi’s election rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata on 7 March 2021. FACTLY examined the images’ origins using reverse image search and comparisons with images and descriptions published elsewhere. Its investigation found that none of the three photos was a view of Modi’s rally: one came from a different political rally, while the other two were older images. For the first photo, FACTLY says reverse image search found the same image on a website in 2014. A matching image on Prokerala was described as showing people at a Left Front rally at the Brigade Parade Ground on 9 February 2014, with photo credit to Kuntal Chakrabarty/IANS. The second photo was traced to a 2019 news article about a Left Front meeting at the same grounds; FACTLY also found it in a 2020 CPI (M) West Bengal tweet describing it as a bird’s-eye view of the previous year’s Brigade rally. The third image was matched to pictures on The Telegraph and India Today. Their caption identified the scene as a Left-Congress-ISF rally at the Brigade Parade Ground ahead of the 2021 West Bengal election—not Modi’s event. Thus the photos combined older rally scenes and an image of a separate, recent political gathering, rather than documenting the crowd at Modi’s rally.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturElections & voting

Das Video zeigt, wie Wahlbetrug in Deutschland möglich ist. Ähnliches ist bei der Landtagswahl 2019 in Thüringen passiert.

Publisher’s rating: Wahlurnen sind in Deutschland immer auf mehrere Arten gesichert - vor allem, indem Wahlvorstand und Wahlhelfer sie beaufsichtigen. Dem Bundeswahlleiter und der Landeswahlleiterin in Baden-Württemberg, wo das Video aufgenommen wurde, sind keine Vorfälle bekannt, bei denen Wahlurnen vorzeitig geöffnet wurden.

FACTLYElections & voting

BJP workers distributing money to bring the crowd for Yogi Adityanath’s rally in West Bengal

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a social-media video said to show BJP workers paying people to attend Yogi Adityanath’s rally during his campaign in West Bengal. FACTLY’s investigation found that the video predated that campaign: it reported that the footage had been online since at least October 2019, so it could not depict the recent West Bengal campaign described in the post. The finding therefore addresses the video’s claimed timing and connection to Adityanath’s rally, rather than establishing the precise circumstances in which the older footage was filmed. To investigate the footage, FACTLY searched screenshots from the video using Yandex Reverse Image Search. It found the same video uploaded to YouTube in October 2019, as well as an extended version whose title referred to a Jan Aashirwad Yatra and a supposed offer of Rs 500 for attending a rally. The article also noted that the video showed people wearing shirts marked “Abki Baar 65 Paar,” a slogan it associated with BJP’s 2019 Jharkhand election campaign. FACTLY qualified its conclusion about the older footage: it said it could not confirm the video’s exact location or context. The video’s age and the visible slogan support the conclusion that it is not evidence of payments for the West Bengal rally, but the supplied investigation does not independently establish whether money was distributed in the older scene or who arranged it.

Fact CrescendoElections & voting

Claim: MK Stalin not denied hindu votes in upcoming assembly election

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim concerns a social-media news card attributed to DMK leader M.K. Stalin. The card said that Hindu votes were not necessary for the DMK to win the coming election. Fact Crescendo’s review investigated whether Stalin had made that statement and whether the card was genuinely published by the Tamil news outlet Puthiya Thalaimurai. The review reports that the card circulated as if authentic, but concludes that it was false. To check the card’s provenance, the reviewers searched for evidence that Puthiya Thalaimurai had published it, but report finding none. They then contacted Manoj, identified in the review as an administrator in the outlet’s digital division, and showed him the card. He said the information was false and that the outlet had not published any such news. This directly challenges the card’s claimed source; the excerpt does not describe an independent recording or transcript verifying what Stalin said. The review also notes that Stalin had recently responded to the issue by saying the DMK was not an anti-Hindu party. That reported remark provides context, but the review’s decisive evidence against the viral item is the outlet’s denial that it published the card. The review therefore identifies the card attributed to Stalin as fabricated; it does not establish from the excerpt that every version of the underlying claim was independently checked against a full speech or interview.

Vishvas NewsElections & voting

மேற்கு வங்க மாநிலம் கொல்கத்தாவில் கம்யூனிஸ்டு & காங்கிரஸ் கூட்டணி சார்பாக நடைபெற்று வரும் தேர்தல் பேரணி

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim describes a Communist–Congress election rally in Kolkata. The review identifies it as a caption accompanying a photograph of a large crowd and examines whether that image showed the 28 February 2021 rally at Brigade Parade Ground. It reports that the Left-Congress-ISF alliance did hold a major rally there to begin campaigning for the 2021 West Bengal assembly election, but says the viral photograph was not from that event: it showed an earlier Left rally.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturElections & voting

Wahlbetrug kann mit Unterschrift auf Wahlzettel verhindert werden.

Publisher’s rating: Wer auf seinen Wahlzettel schmiert oder unterschreibt, macht seine Stimme ungültig.

The claim concerned a Facebook post about Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s 2021 state election. It alleged that the planned possibility of all-mail voting would enable election fraud and urged voters to insist on voting in person and sign their ballots. The review says the state parliament had approved the possibility of all-mail voting in an emergency because of the pandemic. Signing the ballot, however, would not prevent the alleged fraud: it would invalidate the vote. The review explains that a ballot is invalid if, among other conditions, the voter’s intent cannot be determined with certainty or the ballot contains an addition or reservation. It applies those rules directly to the proposed act of signing: writing one’s name next to the ballot mark invalidates the vote. The review states that this rule is set out in both federal and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state law. The article identifies the legal provisions and links to the federal election law and the state election law, as well as to examples of invalid ballots compiled by the city of Gifhorn and explanatory material from wahlrecht.de. Its stated conclusion is that adding a signature does not protect a ballot from fraud; it makes the voter’s own ballot invalid.