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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.

5,415 published reviews in this topic

BBC Reality CheckElections & voting

"One major hub for counting ballots in Detroit covered up the windows again with large pieces of cardboard, and so they wanted to protect and block the counting area."

Publisher’s rating: This is not why windows were covered up. The City of Detroit's principal attorney, Lawrence Garcia, said in a statement: "Some - but not all - windows were covered, because poll workers seated just inside those windows expressed concerns about people outside the center photographing and filming them and their work.

FACTLYElections & voting

Numbers of projected votes for few States in US Presidential Election 2020 is greater than registered voters

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a viral image comparing registered-voter counts with projected votes in several US states, and alleging turnout above 100%. FACTLY checked figures for states named in the post against information it attributed to the relevant state election commissions. Its central finding was that the image’s figures were not official registration statistics and that official registration totals exceeded projected votes in each state examined. The review gives specific examples. Wisconsin had 3,684,726 active registered voters as of November 1, 2020, according to a state election commission tweet; Pennsylvania’s official figures listed 9,091,371 registered voters by county. It also cited 2,032,450 registered voters in Nevada, 7.36 million in North Carolina, and 7,748,541 in Michigan. For North Carolina, it contrasted those registrations with 5.49 million ballots cast. The comparison also had a qualification: registration totals could change because some states permitted election-day registration. FACTLY specifically noted this for Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, and Minnesota, and described some county-reported figures as unofficial or tentative. The evidence therefore addresses the viral comparison by distinguishing it from official registration data and by noting that reported counts could change; it does not treat the image’s projected-vote numbers as authoritative statistics.