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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

"I've been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It's really destroyed our system. It's a corrupt system and it makes people corrupt."

Publisher’s rating: There is no evidence the system is corrupt. Electoral fraud is very rare in the United States - the rate is less than 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice. There's no evidence to suggest it's been a major issue at this election either.

The statement appears in Donald Trump’s remarks early Friday during the 2020 election count. In the BBC review, he says mail-in voting has “destroyed our system” and calls it corrupt. The review places that accusation alongside his repeated public claims about postal voting: it reports that he had posted more than 70 tweets since April casting doubt on mail-in voting, referring to voter fraud, or calling elections “rigged.” The review reports no evidence that the system was corrupt and cites a 2017 Brennan Center for Justice study estimating electoral fraud at less than 0.0009%; it also says there was no evidence fraud had been a major issue in that election. (S1) The review distinguishes different forms of postal voting rather than treating them as one practice. It notes Trump had himself voted by post while registered in Florida, and that he supported absentee ballots, which he said had better safeguards, while objecting to states automatically sending ballots to registered voters. The review says nine states and Washington, DC, automatically sent mail-in ballots to registered voters who had not requested them, and that eight of those states were not then in contention. It also describes safeguards used for postal ballots, including checks that ballots came from a voter’s registered address and signature requirements on envelopes. (S1) The article also addresses the context for claims that mailed ballots favored one party. It reports that Democratic voters favored voting by post while Republicans more often voted in person on election day, and says there was evidence of that pattern in the vote count. It separately notes that Trump criticized postal voting as open to fraud “without real evidence.” These details provide context for the election dispute, but the review’s stated evidence about the corruption accusation is its finding that there was no evidence the system was corrupt and its cited fraud-rate estimate. (S1)

MediaWiseElections & voting

Ballot selfies are illegal

Publisher’s rating: Legit

The review addresses social-media claims that taking a selfie with a ballot is illegal. Its conclusion is qualified: the law depends on the state, and the review says that sharing an image of a completed ballot is illegal in some states—not everywhere. The claim is therefore too broad if read as a universal rule. To make that distinction, the review points readers to a map showing where ballot selfies are and are not illegal. The excerpt does not list the states, describe the map’s underlying legal research, or specify whether rules differ for in-person and mail voting. It supports a state-by-state conclusion, but not a complete account of the law in any particular state.

BBC Reality CheckElections & voting

"It's amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided too."

Publisher’s rating: This requires context. President Trump urged Republican voters to turn up on the day, rather than using mail-in ballots. There's evidence from the vote count that this is what has happened - Democratic voters favoured voting by post and Republicans voted on the day in person.

Vishvas NewsElections & voting

India Against Hate & Violence' అనే ఫేస్‌బుక్ గ్రూపులో పోలింగ్‌ బూత్‌లో బక్కపల్చని, ఒంటిపై బట్టలు కూడాలేని మనిషి ఓటు వేస్తున్న ఫోటోను అప్‌లోడ్ చేశాడు. తన పిల్లలు బాధపడకుండా ఉండాలని, వాళ్ల భవిష్యత్తు బాగుండాలన్న ఆశతో ఓటు వేయడానికి వచ్చానని, బీహార్‌లో 15 ఏళ్ల నితీష్‌ పాలనలో అభివృద్ధి ఏమీ జరగలేదని ఆ ఓటరు విమర్శించారు.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photo posted by Facebook user Rishabh Trivedi in the “India Against Hate & Violence” group. The post described the pictured voter as coming to vote for his children’s future and criticizing what it called 15 years of Nitish Kumar’s rule in Bihar. Vishvas News investigated whether the image showed a Bihar voter during the 2020 election, and concluded that it did not: its account says the photo was taken in Assam in 2014, not Bihar. The review describes using Google reverse-image search to trace the image. It says the photo appeared in a 2019 Janjwar article and a 2014 article by The Hindu. The latter identified the voter as a Tiwa tribal man from Karbi Anglong district in Assam; the review also says its picture credit helped identify photographer Rituraj Konwar. Konwar told Vishvas News that the image was old, was not from Bihar, and was being shared with a false claim. The key distinction is between the photo’s earlier Assam provenance and the later post’s account of a Bihar voter and Bihar politics. The review’s evidence addresses the image’s origin, not whether the quoted political criticism was genuinely spoken by the person pictured. It reports no independent verification of that quotation.