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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

FACTLYElections & voting

20 lakh EVMs missing from the possession of ECI

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post claimed that 20 lakh EVMs were missing from the possession of the Election Commission of India (ECI). FACTLY reports that it checked the claim against a public clarification by ECI spokesperson Sheyphali Sharan. She said there was no truth in the contention that 20 lakh EVMs were missing, and FACTLY concluded that the post’s claim was false. The review traces the allegation to a Frontline story titled “Missing EVMs.” According to FACTLY, that story relied on responses to Right to Information requests made by Mumbai activist Manoranjan Roy, who also filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay High Court based on information he received through those requests. The review says the story was subsequently reported by other outlets, including The Logical Indian and TV9 Bharatvarsh. FACTLY reproduces Sharan’s explanation of why the allegation was not supported: the reports rested on an “inaccurate & specious misinterpretation of partial facts obtained from RTI from multiple Public Authorities.” The excerpts provided do not include the underlying RTI responses or a full reconciliation of the records, so the review’s account of those documents cannot be independently assessed from this material. Its stated basis for rejecting the claim is the ECI spokesperson’s clarification and the reported characterization of the information behind the allegation.

FACTLYElections & voting

A Congress poster in Wayanad (Kerala) misspelt Rahul Gandhi name as ‘Rahul Gandu’.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined the specific claim that a Congress poster in Wayanad, Kerala, showed Rahul Gandhi’s name altered to “Rahul Gandu.” It concluded that the image did not establish a misspelling on a Wayanad poster: the poster photo was from Telangana, and the version shared in the claim had been edited. The review says the name is correctly spelled in the actual photo. «A post with an image of a Congress poster is being shared on Facebook claiming that Rahul Gandhi’s name has been misspelt on the poster.» «The photo of the poster has been taken in Telangana, not Kerala. Also, the photo has been photoshopped. In the actual photo, it can be seen that Rahul Gandhi name has not been misspelt.» The review explains that it identified the poster’s location by recognizing leaders shown in it as Telangana Congress figures, rather than Kerala Congress leaders. It also describes finding an earlier Telugu article with the original photo and a Facebook video showing the same flexi with the name spelled correctly. Together, these details support its conclusion that the circulating image was altered and misattributed to Wayanad. «If the leaders in the poster are clearly observed, it can be found that they are Telangana Congress leaders (Sudheer Reddy at the bottom right and Uttam Kumar at the top right), not Kerala Congress leaders. So, the poster is from Telangana, not Wayanad (Kerala).» «The original photo can be found in that article. Also, on the official Facebook account of Sudheer Reddy, a video posted last year shows the same flexi, in which the name was found to be correctly spelt.»

FACTLYElections & voting

Yogi Adityanath has threatened that he would set ablaze the whole nation if BJP loses elections

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a Facebook post alleging that Yogi Adityanath warned he would burn the whole nation if the BJP lost the elections. The investigation focused on a news-channel image presented as evidence of the alleged threat. FACTLY reports that this image was not an authentic broadcast: it describes the screen grab as “a morphed one.” To assess the image, the review identified the channel shown as the Gujarati outlet Mantavya News and compared the language in different parts of the frame. The headline about Adityanath appeared in Hindi, while the scrolling text was in Gujarati. The review also noted that the image lacked the top and left margins it said are usually seen in news broadcasts, and that the red color differed in the lower portion of the image. On those image features, FACTLY concluded that the screen grab had been altered. This finding addresses the specific evidence circulated with the post: the image does not establish that Adityanath made the alleged threat. The excerpt does not provide an original broadcast or independently document what Adityanath said; its stated basis is the visual examination of the circulated image.

NewtralElections & voting

El vídeo que cuestiona el voto por correo en el 28A

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The video, posted on a YouTube channel described as offering home tutorials, sought to explain how votes shifted between the 28 April 2019 election and the 2016 election. Its creator attributed the PSOE’s increase in votes to alleged manipulation of postal voting. The review says this comparison overlooked the much higher turnout: 2,207,590 more people voted in 2019 than in 2016. Because the number of voters differed, the video’s explanation of the result was not valid on the figures it used. (The source describes the increase as over two million.) The video also alleged that Scytl handled the vote count and suggested that this enabled wrongdoing. The review says that claim was false: local polling-station table members count the ballots in a public process governed by the electoral law. It explains that an outside company’s role was limited to providing provisional results information, and identifies Indra—not Scytl—as the company selected through a public tender to perform that task in 2019. The review additionally challenges two figures cited in the video’s YouTube description: an alleged 750,000 PSOE votes that the creator said did not add up, and a claim that 1,581,115 voters had been removed from the electoral register. It says the latter was false and explains that the register used for the election was closed on 1 December 2018. The source gives the number of eligible voters as 36,893,976, including residents in Spain and abroad.

Fact CrescendoElections & voting

Claim: Kanimozhi paid money to voters

Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: False

The claim concerned a viral video presented as showing Kanimozhi paying voters during her 2019 Thoothukudi parliamentary campaign. The review describes the footage as showing women performing an aarti for her while DMK district secretary and Tiruchendur MLA Anitha Radhakrishnan handed them money. The post gave no date or location for the recording, but framed it as voter payments during the election period. To investigate the footage’s provenance, the review searched Facebook for other versions and related coverage. It found a News J report uploaded on March 3, which described the money as a controversy but did not say that election rules had been violated or that voters were being paid. The review then compared the viral video with photographs of Kanimozhi at a village council meeting, including her appearance in a red sari and Anitha Radhakrishnan standing beside her, and checked Kanimozhi’s own post about attending meetings the previous day. That post identified meetings in several villages on February 27, 2019; the review concluded that the video was recorded that day. It also states that the parliamentary election was announced on March 10, when election conduct rules came into effect. The decisive context, as presented in the review, is therefore that the footage showed a pre-announcement event, not an event after those rules took effect. The review concluded that presenting the older video as evidence of Kanimozhi paying voters during the election period was misleading.