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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

Deutsche Presse-AgenturElections & voting

Die Präsidentenwahl in den USA verursacht einige Aufregung in Sozialen Medien. «Hinweis auf Wahlbetrug», schreiben Nutzer (archiviert) in sozialen Medien. Der US-Bundesstaat Wisconsin habe offiziell 3 129 000 registrierte Wähler. Allein auf die beiden Spitzenkandidaten entfielen aber 3 239 920 Stimmen.

Publisher’s rating: Die Behauptungen sind falsch. Es gab nicht mehr Stimmen als Wähler, sondern die höchste Wahlbeteiligung seit langem.

The claim concerned Wisconsin in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Social-media posts compared a purported 3,129,000 registered voters with 3,239,920 votes for the two leading candidates and presented the difference as evidence of possible election fraud. The review says those figures were wrong, and that the apparent voter-registration number came from an earlier election rather than the 2020 contest. The review reports that Wisconsin’s election commission, which oversees compliance with election laws, recorded exactly 3,684,726 active registered voters on November 1, 2020. It also says the commission rejected the rumor on Twitter. The cited 3.1-million figure, by contrast, was from the 2018 congressional elections, identified in the review as appearing in Table 4a. Thus, the post’s comparison did not use a valid 2020 registration total. The review gives a separate vote count: citing The New York Times, it says 3,297,137 votes had been recorded in Wisconsin by the Thursday after Election Day. That was below the reported active-registration figure. The review also places the unusually high participation in context, describing it as Wisconsin’s highest turnout since the 2004 election and noting a record number of early votes. The comparison in the social-media claim therefore relied on a mismatched registration figure, not evidence that votes exceeded registered voters.

BBC Reality CheckElections & voting

"Crooked Philly Democrat Machine Stops Counting"

Publisher’s rating: Poll workers did not stop counting votes in Philadelphia. A statement from the city commissioners clarified that counting was continuing, but there were some delays in reporting. "We're going to continue to count all day long," it said.

Noticias TelemundoElections & voting

Trump dice que gana en estados como Pennsylvania, Michigan y Wisconsin

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The review examines Donald Trump’s election-night statements that he was ahead in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It places them at about 2:20 a.m. on Wednesday, November 4, 2020, when votes were still being counted. Trump cited a lead of nearly 300,000 votes in Michigan with 65% counted, and said he was winning the other two states as well. The review notes that, at that moment, he did lead in all three states, but that this was an incomplete count: millions of mail ballots were still being processed. The key context was the expected timing of those ballots. More Democrats than Republicans had voted by mail, so the review explains, Trump’s advantage was expected to shrink as the mail votes were included. That pattern was already visible in Wisconsin: after Milwaukee reported its mail-vote totals, Joe Biden moved ahead shortly before 5 a.m. ET, with 89% of votes counted. The review says the race was still too close to call at that point. The review also describes how much counting remained elsewhere. Pennsylvania officials had begun processing nearly 2.5 million mail ballots on Tuesday morning, and Governor Tom Wolf said shortly before 3 a.m. ET on Wednesday that more than one million ballots remained uncounted. In Michigan, more than 3 million people had voted by mail, and most jurisdictions had not begun processing those ballots until Tuesday. The review reports that state officials had warned the count could take until the end of the week, and that the three races were too close for NBC News to project a winner.

BBC Reality CheckElections & voting

Trump votes were "thrown away" by an election worker

Publisher’s rating: The Erie County election board called the claims false. It said "the person making the statements [about throwing out ballots] does not work in any way with Erie County or have any part of Erie County's election process. In fact, the individual is not a registered voter and is not believed to be a resident of Erie County."