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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

Fact CrescendoElections & voting

Claim: CPIM TN leader complains about Madurai EVM Security

Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: True

The review examines reports that a woman tahsildar entered the facility where votes cast in the Madurai parliamentary constituency were stored, and that opposition parties complained to Tamil Nadu’s Chief Electoral Officer. It identifies the complainant as K. Balakrishnan, then Tamil Nadu CPM state secretary, and says the complaint was also made by DMK, VCK and CPI representatives. The review’s account is about access to the storage site and concerns over security procedures; it does not say that EVMs were tampered with.

FACTLYElections & voting

M.B. Patil wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi about the strategy of dividing Hindus and uniting Muslims to win the elections.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The allegation concerned a letter circulating on Facebook in the name of Dr M.B. Patil, a Karnataka Congress leader, and dated 10 July 2017. It purported to discuss a strategy of dividing Hindus and uniting Muslims to win elections in Karnataka. FACTLY reports that Patil publicly rejected the letter: he “held a press conference and said that the letter in circulation is fake.” The review describes several checks supporting that conclusion. It reports that Karnataka Congress challenged the letter’s circulation and said it had first appeared in 2018 on Post Card News, which later deleted the article, before being recirculated by BJP Karnataka ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in the state. FACTLY also says it searched for the religious organizations named in the letter and found no organizations with the names “Global Christian Council” and “World Islamic Organization.” The review notes that the allegation had also circulated before the Karnataka Assembly Elections and that AltNews had previously debunked it. Taken together, the review’s reported evidence is Patil’s direct denial, the reported absence of the named organizations, and the letter’s documented circulation history—not evidence that Patil wrote or sent the letter to Sonia Gandhi.

Fact CrescendoElections & voting

Claim: Google CEO voted in Tamil Nadu

Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: False

The claim under review was that Google CEO Sundar Pichai travelled to Tamil Nadu to vote, a story shared on Facebook with a photograph and a reference to the film *Sarkar*. The review says the post was published on April 18 and describes it as asserting that Pichai came to the state to vote after seeing the film. Its investigation focused on whether the shared photograph showed such a visit. The review reports using Google’s website and reverse-image search with the picture in the post. It says this traced the picture to an older image Pichai had shared on Twitter, rather than a photograph of a trip to Tamil Nadu to vote. The review identifies the original setting as a question-and-answer event at IIT Kharagpur on January 5, 2017, where Pichai spoke with students. As further support for that identification, the review says Google India had posted a video of the full IIT Kharagpur event on its official YouTube page. On the evidence described, the image was recirculated with a false account of when and why it was taken; it does not establish that Pichai came to Tamil Nadu to vote.

Fact CrescendoElections & voting

Claim: Edappadi Palaniswami gives money to voters

Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: False

The claim concerns a video circulated during the 2019 election campaign that appeared to show Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami secretly handing money to a woman selling fruit in Salem. The post framed the exchange as payment for a vote. Fact Crescendo’s review says the video was shared with the allegation that the chief minister was paying for votes, and identifies the woman as a fruit seller. The review dates the event to April 16, when Palaniswami was campaigning in areas of Salem parliamentary constituency; polling in most of Tamil Nadu’s constituencies was held on April 18.

FACTLYElections & voting

BJP candidate Kento Jini has won a Lok Sabha seat unopposed.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns Kento Jini’s unopposed election in Arunachal Pradesh in 2019 and describes it as a win in a Lok Sabha constituency. FACTLY distinguishes the parliamentary election from the assembly election: it reports that Jini won the Alo East Constituency Assembly seat unopposed, not a Lok Sabha seat. The review also notes that Arunachal Pradesh had two parliamentary seats and identifies the BJP candidates for them as Tapir Gao in Arunachal East and Kiren Rijiju in Arunachal West. To check Jini’s office, the review says it searched his name online, points to a tweet by BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav about his unopposed win, and identifies an Election Commission of India affidavit filed under the Alo East Assembly Constituency. These details place Jini’s candidacy in a state assembly constituency rather than either parliamentary constituency. The review further reports that Jini’s sole rival, Congress candidate Minkir Lollen, had a nomination that the Election Commission found invalid. That explains how Jini was elected unopposed, while the constituency and affidavit evidence establish that the unopposed victory was for the assembly seat—not the Lok Sabha seat described in the claim.

台灣事實查核中心Elections & voting

川普推特發文支持郭台銘參選

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤

The claim concerned a social-media image circulating as a screenshot of a Donald Trump tweet supporting Terry Gou’s candidacy. The Taiwan FactCheck Center traced the image to a Taiwanese scholar who said he had made it using FakeTrumpTweet.com and posted it on his personal social-media page. The scholar told the center that the post was intended as political satire, not as a genuine Trump tweet. The review reports that the creator had marked the post with “#fake” and restricted its audience to specific friends. He said he did not know who took a screenshot and spread it more widely. This provenance indicates that the image was a fabricated parody rather than evidence that Trump had publicly endorsed Gou. The center concluded that the image was the scholar’s satirical creation, not a screenshot of a tweet by Trump, and that presenting it as a real event distorted the creator’s intent.