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Tag: AP Fact Check

  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

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    Temperature graph misrepresented to deny climate change

    CLAIM: A graph from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration displaying land and ocean temperatures over the last eight years shows that the Earth has been cooling, not warming, proving that global warming from carbon emissions is a hoax.

    THE FACTS: A small portion of the graph showing only the period from 2015 and 2022 has been taken out of context to make the incorrect claim. The larger graph from which it was isolated displays temperature trends over more than 140 years, showing a dramatic upward trend. Social media users misrepresented the graph to support the erroneous claim that global temperatures are falling rather than rising, meaning global warming is “a hoax.” The graph being shared online appears to show a slight downward trend, with a note saying the overall temperature decreased 0.11 degrees Celsius during the 2015-2022 period. “The 8-year temperature time series shows the annual global mean surface temperatures for the most recent eight years,” said Jeffrey Hicke, a professor at the University of Idaho’s Department of Earth and Spatial Sciences. “It is accurate as shown, but is misleading.” That’s because while the last eight years trended slightly downward, this small period of time was greatly impacted by natural El Niño and La Niña cycles, experts explained. Zooming in on just this period does not discredit the overall upward trend of global temperatures over the past century. The full NOAA graph, which displays temperature trends from 1880 to 2022, shows a dramatic rise in global average temperatures. Hicke said the graph in its full context is “much more appropriate for assessing the influence of human activities on climate.” NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information said in a statement that although the climate is warming, it is also subject to natural variability as it is impacted by weather events such as El Niños and La Niñas. El Niños bring unusually warm temperatures across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, while La Niñas bring unusually cool temperatures. During El Niños, global temperatures tend to be warmer than in years when La Niñas were present. In its statement, NOAA said that 2015-2016 experienced a strong El Niño, which helped boost global temperatures to record highs. But since then, about three La Niñas have helped slightly cool global temperatures. “The selected timeframe from 2016-2022 can create the appearance of a cooling trend,” the agency said, adding, “this is why when computing trends we use timescales of at least 10 years.” John Knox, a professor at the University of Georgia’s Geography Department who studies the dynamics of weather and climate, said the claim in the tweet “is a classic example of cherry-picking the end points of a time series to seemingly prove a false point.” “It’s a very short period of time, which reduces the statistical significance of claims of a trend,” he wrote in an email, adding, “The rising temperature trend over the decades is obvious.”

    — Associated Press writer Sophia Tulp in New York contributed this report.

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    Harvard med school class isn’t about ‘trans infants’

    CLAIM: A class at Harvard Medical School trains students to treat transgender infants.

    THE FACTS: The course is a month-long elective about health care for LGBTQ patients. Only one day focuses on infants and it does not cover their gender identity or sexual orientation, the class’s professor told The Associated Press. In recent days, conservative websites and online commentators have distorted the content of the class, as social media users point to it as an extreme example of gender-affirming health care. “Harvard is teaching medical students about transgender infants,” wrote one Twitter user, whose post had gained almost 10,000 likes as of Tuesday. But these claims misrepresent what the class actually teaches about infants. The course — titled “Caring for Patients with Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, and Sex Development” — teaches only about the physical development of babies who are born intersex, according to Dr. Alex Keuroghlian, the associate professor who teaches the class. The term intersex describes people born with reproductive organs, hormones or other traits that don’t fit typical definitions of male or female. These conditions may or may not be noticeable at birth, explained Dr. Arlene Baratz, who is the medical and research affairs coordinator for the intersex advocacy group InterConnect. A transgender person is someone whose gender identity — whether they feel like a girl, boy, neither or both — differs from the gender they were assigned at birth. The term transgender is not synonymous with intersex. Parents and families of intersex children “have questions about health implications of these physical variations,” Keuroghlian told the AP. “Medical students need to know how to provide this care.” As part of the course, students also study how to care for non-infant patients and focus on disciplines such as psychiatry, endocrinology, dermatology and infectious disease. Physical differences in an intersex infant’s genitals “can be obvious in a newborn and usually triggers a cascade of medical attention including an evaluation to discover the underlying cause,” Baratz said in an email. Sean Saifa Wall, a co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project, said that an infant’s physical sex characteristics are apparent long before they have a sense of what gender is, or which gender they feel like. He said conservative critics were “purposefully conflating” the two. Older children who experience gender dysphoria — feelings of distress about their assigned gender — may seek out transition-related health care to relieve those feelings once they’ve reached puberty. But surgeries and hormones are not given to young children or infants for this purpose, despite some misleading rhetoric.

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    CNN didn’t publish story linking Damar Hamlin collapse to vaccine

    CLAIM: Image shows that CNN published a Jan. 11 headline reading, “Doctor of Damar Hamlin confirms Cardiac Arrest was due to the 4th Booster Vaccine.”

    THE FACTS: The screenshot was manipulated to add the fabricated headline, a CNN spokesperson confirmed. The actual headline reported on the release of the Buffalo Bills safety from a hospital. Social media posts are spreading the manipulated image amid unsupported claims that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest was caused by a COVID-19 vaccine. “Doctor of Damar Hamlin confirms Cardiac Arrest was due to the 4th Booster Vaccine,” the purported headline shows. The image shows a story published at 1:37 p.m. Eastern time on Jan. 11. Other social media posts without the image similarly alleged that CNN reported such information. But a search of CNN’s website shows the screenshot was manipulated to change the headline on a different story. The real headline — published at that time, by the same reporters, using the same photo of Hamlin — actually reads: “Damar Hamlin discharged after spending more than a week hospitalized due to a cardiac arrest.” CNN spokesperson Emily Kuhn also confirmed in an email to The Associated Press that the screenshot was fabricated and that CNN did not publish the headline in question. Social media users previously shared a screenshot of a tweet from a dubious account, in which someone claimed to be a doctor and purported that the Bills player received a COVID-19 booster on Dec. 26, days before he collapsed during a Jan. 2 game in Cincinnati. That account is no longer active and there is no evidence that the individual was a doctor for Hamlin. The Bills and a Buffalo doctor who led Hamlin’s care team announced his Jan. 11 discharge from a Buffalo hospital but did not disclose the results of tests performed to determine the reason his heart stopped. The NFL player’s collapse gave renewed energy to a faulty narrative that the vaccines are causing a dramatic rise in cardiac issues among young athletes. Cardiologists have told the AP there have been instances of athletes experiencing sudden cardiac death and cardiac arrest long before the COVID-19 pandemic and that they have not observed the dramatic increase alleged on social media.

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report.

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    Video of Austrian reporter collapsing predates pandemic

    CLAIM: Video shows Austrian news presenter collapsing live on-air due to side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine.

    THE FACTS: The video, which captures Austrian Broadcasting Corporation reporter Rosa Lyon, was filmed on Sept. 24, 2019, before the pandemic began and well before COVID-19 shots were invented. Social media users have been linking the 2019 clip of Lyon’s collapse to the vaccine for months, and the claim resurfaced online this week. The dramatic footage shows the reporter sitting behind a desk as she presents for the show “Zeit im Bild,” when she suddenly falls backwards. “THEY’RE DROPPING LIKE FLIES,” an Instagram user who posted the video on Tuesday wrote. One user commented under the post that the video showed a reaction caused by “VAIDS,” short for vaccine acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. VAIDS is not a real condition, nor do COVID-19 vaccines cause a syndrome that matches that description, The Associated Press has previously reported. The clip of Lyon was also featured in anti-vaccine film “Died Suddenly.” The film, which premiered in November, pushes several debunked vaccine claims, along with videos of people collapsing that have no link to the vaccine. Michael Krause, a spokesperson for Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, confirmed to the AP in an email that the incident occurred in September 2019. “There is absolutely no connection to Corona,” he wrote.

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    Old video of Russian plane in flames circulates after Nepal crash

    CLAIM: A video shows the Sunday crash of a passenger plane in Pokhara, Nepal, which killed all 72 aboard.

    THE FACTS: The video was recorded in 2021 and was shot in Russia, not Nepal. However, social media users posted it purporting it showed Yeti Airlines flight 691, which crashed Sunday after a 27-minute trip from Kathmandu, just before landing in Nepal’s tourist city of Pokhara. The video that spread widely in both English and Spanish showed a plane flying over a forested landscape, then catching fire and passing behind a white tower before plummeting into the trees below. “Plane crash in Nepal, crazy how it’s hard to survive this,” read one tweet with the video. However, a reverse-image search of the footage reveals it shows the 2021 crash of a prototype military transport plane that was conducting a test flight outside Moscow. The plane crashed in a forested area as it was coming in for a landing at the Kubinka airfield 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of Moscow, killing all three crew members on board, Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation told the Tass news agency. An August 2021 AP report on that crash includes screenshots from the video and notes that it was provided by Dmitry Ovchinnikov. The recent crash of the much-larger twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft in Nepal was the country’s deadliest air disaster in 30 years. It’s still not clear what caused the crash.

    — Associated Press writer Abril Mulato in Mexico City contributed this report with additional reporting from Ali Swenson in New York.

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    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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  • FACT FOCUS: Biden administration isn’t banning gas stoves

    FACT FOCUS: Biden administration isn’t banning gas stoves

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    The Biden administration has come under fire this week due to overcooked fears that it is planning a nationwide ban on gas stoves.

    The claim was sparked by comments from a Consumer Product Safety Commission official published Monday that “any option is on the table” when it comes to regulating gas stoves, amid growing health concerns over the appliances. In the days after, discussion online evoked images of the government dragging four-burner cooktops from homes, as social media users shared memes of gas stoves with text like, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

    “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!” conservative Texas GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson said on Twitter Tuesday.

    But officials insist that people’s kitchen appliances are in no danger. Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: The Biden administration is planning a ban on gas stoves nationwide.

    THE FACTS: The White House says President Joe Biden would not support a ban, and the commission, an independent agency, says no such ban is in the works.

    “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so,” CPSC Chair Alex Hoehn-Saric said in a statement on Wednesday.

    The notion that the government may regulate some stoves out of existence in the future isn’t totally baseless. In an interview published Monday by Bloomberg News, Richard Trumka Jr., a CPSC commissioner who was nominated to the post by Biden and has concerns that gas stoves emit dangerous levels of toxic chemicals, was quoted as saying: “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

    However, Trumka tweeted later that day to clarify that he was talking about regulation on new products.

    “To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves,” he wrote. “Regulations apply to new products.”

    Despite this, news of a potential “gas stove ban” continued to spread in headlines and on social media. Some users, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, shared an old photo of first lady Jill Biden cooking on a gas stove, suggesting hypocrisy.

    “The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner. I can tell you the last thing that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on,” West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin tweeted Tuesday.

    The White House responded by distancing itself from Trumka’s comments.

    “The president does not support banning gas stoves,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing on Wednesday. “And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves.”

    The CPSC is studying gas stove emissions and ways to address potential health risks and is seeking public input on the issue in the spring, Hoehn-Saric noted in his statement. Pamela Rucker Springs, a spokesperson for the commission, confirmed to The Associated Press that it has not proposed any regulatory action on gas stoves.

    “The chairman’s statement makes it explicit what we are planning and what we’re not planning,” Springs said. “Anything otherwise said is to the contrary.”

    Research has found that gas stoves in California are leaking cancer-causing benzene, while another study determined that U.S. gas stoves are contributing to global warming by putting 2.6 million tons of methane in the air each year even when turned off. There is good evidence that gas stoves emit harmful levels of oxides of nitrogen, which is known to cause asthma, said Dr. Aaron Bernstein, interim director of the center for climate, health, and the global environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

    Some federal lawmakers have called on the commission to address the potential health risks through regulation, such as requiring that gas stoves be sold with range hoods to improve ventilation or issuing mandatory performance standards for gas stoves to address the health impacts of hazardous emissions. Some local governments have moved to ban new buildings from using natural gas, such as San Francisco and Berkeley, California.

    Banning gas stoves isn’t a “practical response” to the research on the harmful effects of gas stoves, Bernstein said. Instead, steps should be taken to limit prolonged use of gas stoves and improve ventilation in kitchens with gas stoves, such as using vents or opening doors and windows, he said.

    “What we know is that gas stoves release air pollutants that are absolutely known to be harmful,” Bernstein said. “And the part that’s harder to get clarity on is how much exposure are people getting in their homes.”

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    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • As elites arrive in Davos, conspiracy theories thrive online

    As elites arrive in Davos, conspiracy theories thrive online

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    NEW YORK (AP) — When some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential figures gathered at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting last year, sessions on climate change drew high-level discussions on topics such as carbon financing and sustainable food systems.

    But an entirely different narrative played out on the internet, where social media users claimed leaders wanted to force the population to eat insects instead of meat in the name of saving the environment.

    The annual event in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos, which opens Monday, has increasingly become a target of bizarre claims from a growing chorus of commentators who believe the forum involves a group of elites manipulating global events for their own benefit. Experts say what was once a conspiracy theory found in the internet’s underbelly has now hit the mainstream.

    “This isn’t a conspiracy that is playing out on the extreme fringes,” said Alex Friedfeld, a researcher with the Anti-Defamation League who studies anti-government extremism. “We’re seeing it on mainstream social media platforms being shared by regular Americans. We were seeing it being spread by mainstream media figures right on their prime time news, on their nightly networks.”

    The meeting draws heads of state, business executives, cultural trendsetters and representatives from international organizations to the luxe mountain town. Though it’s always unclear how much concrete action will emerge, the meeting is slated to take on pressing global issues from climate change and economic uncertainty to geopolitical instability and public health.

    Hundreds of public sessions are planned, but the four-day conference is also known for secretive backroom meetings and deal-making by business leaders. This gap between what’s shown to the public and what happens behind closed doors helps make that makes the meeting a flashpoint for misinformation.

    “When we have very high levels of ambiguity, it’s very easy to fill in narratives,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who is the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and also studies misinformation.

    Theories about influential global leaders are not new, she said, but scrutiny of the forum and its chairman, Klaus Schwab, intensified in 2020 in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. That year, the theme of the annual meeting was “The Great Reset.” The initiative envisioned sweeping changes to how societies and economies would work to recover from the pandemic and build a more sustainable future.

    Now, in increasingly mainstream corners of the internet and on conservative talk shows, “The Great Reset” has become shorthand for what skeptics say is a reorganization of society, using global uncertainty as a guise to take away rights. Believers argue that measures including pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates are tools to consolidate power and undercut individual sovereignty.

    In a time of mounting anxiety, Jamieson says the public has become more susceptible to falsehoods, as conspiracy theories emerge as a tool to cut through the chaos. Researchers who monitor extremism say these beliefs are becoming more popular and more concerning.

    At a rally staged on the grounds of an upstate New York church last fall, a photo of Schwab was displayed on the center of a large screen alongside other “villains” accused of threatening American values. The crowd of thousands had gathered in a revivalist tent at a traveling roadshow used as a recruiting tool for an ascendant Christian nationalist movement. Participants discussed “The Great Reset,” among a host of other theories, as an assault on America’s foundations.

    The phrase was used more than 60 times across all programs on Fox News in 2022, according to one tally generated by the Internet Archive’s TV news database. That’s up from 30 mentions in 2021 and about 20 in 2020. It was discussed most frequently on “The Ingraham Angle” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

    And in August, amid a defamation trial for calling the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack a hoax, Infowars host Alex Jones released a book called “The Great Reset: And The War For the World.” It’s described as an analysis of “the global elite’s international conspiracy to enslave humanity and all life on the planet.”

    As the World Economic Forum has become intertwined with this narrative, a steady stream of claims have plagued the organization. While some people offer legitimate criticisms of the forum — namely that it hosts wealthy executives who fly in on emissions-spewing corporate jets — others spread unverified or baseless information as fact.

    For example, a site known for spreading fabricated stories falsely claimed last month that Schwab publicly encouraged the decriminalization of sex between children and adults, using an invented quote and other baseless statements. Still, it drew tens of thousands of shares on Twitter and Facebook.

    Meanwhile, the popular claim that the forum wants people to replace meat with bugs is a distorted reference to an article once published on the organization’s website. In another instance, a widely shared post claimed without evidence that the forum had “appointed” U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House before the actual vote had taken place.

    The concern, Friedfeld says, is that posts like these could introduce people to more fringe and dangerous conspiracy theories or even translate into real-world violence. Yann Zopf, head of media for the forum, says the organization has increased its monitoring of this kind of online activity and carefully watches for direct threats.

    “Creating all that kind of stuff can generate enemies that people believe are responsible for whatever bad thing is happening in the world,” Friedfeld said. “Once that happens, when you believe that that things are happening in the world and a certain person or group of people is responsible for these attacks, all of a sudden, the idea of using violence to resist becomes more plausible.”

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    Follow AP’s coverage of the World Economic Forum meeting at https://apnews.com/hub/world-economic-forum

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  • Fact-checking at the AP

    Fact-checking at the AP

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    Getting the facts right has been core to AP’s mission since our founding in 1846. When a public figure says something questionable, it is our job to investigate it and offer the facts. You’ll find some of those stories here.

    In addition, when a false story gains traction online, we create a separate fact-checking item that tells the true story. This is where you’ll find those stories and our weekly roundup of untrue headlines that have been shared widely on social media.

    As with all AP staff, AP fact checkers must adhere to the company’s Statement of News Values, which states: “AP employees must avoid behavior or activities – political, social or financial – that create a conflict of interest or compromise our ability to report the news fairly and accurately, uninfluenced by any person or action.”

    Learn more from AP’s Statement of News Values and Principles.

    AP Fact Check has for years been a member of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), a unit of the Poynter Institute dedicated to bringing together fact-checkers worldwide.

    AP FACT CHECK TEAM:

    The AP Fact Check team includes the staffers listed below. However, fact-checking is deeply integrated into our whole global operation and we rely on the expertise of our journalists on a wide variety of topics to inform our fact-checking work. Therefore, it is not uncommon to see two bylines, or contributor lines, on a fact check. In addition, any staffer may choose to do a fact check in text or visuals with reporting help and guidance from the Fact Check team.

    The operation’s leadership team consists of Barbara Whitaker and Ruth Brown, who are in charge of the overall direction of AP’s fact-checking work and make key decisions about coverage.

    NEWS VERIFICATION

    BARBARA WHITAKER is the editor for AP News Verification, managing a team of reporters and editors that knocks down false news circulating online. She is based in New York. During her 30 years in journalism, she’s worked nationally and internationally for publications including The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Newsday and The Dallas Morning News. Whitaker also taught a lifestyle journalism class while editing for the AP on contract in Warsaw, Poland.

    RUTH BROWN is the weekend news editor for AP Verification. She is based in New York City, and has previously worked as an editor at the New York Post, Brooklyn Paper and Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon. Brown originally hails from Melbourne, Australia, where she worked at Crikey, a political email newsletter that has nothing to do with Steve Irwin. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics from La Trobe University in Melbourne.

    ALI SWENSON is a reporter based in New York. She has worked as a reporter and editor for the Phoenix New Times and Los Angeles Times, and as a podcast producer for the Center for Public Integrity and other freelance clients. Swenson previously covered breaking news for the AP in New York City, where she investigated accusations against the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Loyola Marymount University and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

    ANGELO FICHERA is a reporter based in Philadelphia. He has worked as a reporter for FactCheck.org, Courier-Post in New Jersey and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University.

    ARIJETA LAJKA is a New York-based reporter specializing in online misinformation, disinformation and verification in video. She has a background in international reporting, producing and filming documentaries for BBC News and CBS. Lajka has also covered trending news for VICE News, and previously reported for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Kosovo. She holds a BA in literature and politics from Wagner College in and an MS in journalism from Columbia University, both in New York City.

    BEATRICE DUPUY is a reporter based in New York City. She has worked for Teen Vogue, Newsweek and The Star Tribune in Minneapolis. At the Star Tribune, Dupuy reported on county government and education. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism with a minor in French from the University of Florida.

    GRAPH MASSARA is an editor and reporter based in San Francisco. Previously, he worked as an editor at Politico where he edited, curated and fact-checked high-profile politics and policy newsletters. He holds a B.A, from UC Berkeley, where he studied media, memes and…

    KARENA PHAN is a reporter based in Los Angeles. She has worked for TIME Magazine and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. She focused on reporting and explaining complex news topics at TIME For Kids, TIME magazine’s news edition for young readers. There, she reported on the environment, education, and the arts. She received a B.A. in Literary Journalism with a minor in Digital information systems at the University of California, Irvine.

    MELISSA GOLDIN is a reporter/editor based in New York. Prior to joining the AP, she was a newsletter editor and staff analyst at NewsGuard Technologies where she wrote enterprise reports covering misinformation, and reviewed news and information sites for credibility and transparency with a focus on politics and conspiracy theories. Goldin has also analyzed misinformation for Factstory, a subsidiary of the Agence France-Presse news agency, and written for media outlets including Smart Cities Dive, Mashable, WXXI News and The Brooklyn Paper. She has a B.A. in English (Language, Media and Communication) from the University of Rochester.

    PHILIP MARCELO is a news verification reporter based in New York. He was previously a general assignment reporter in the AP’s Boston bureau, with a focus on immigration and race. Prior to that, he was political reporter at The Providence Journal in Rhode Island. He’s a native of Long Island, New York and graduated from Georgetown and Brown universities.

    SOPHIA TULP is a multiformat journalist and Emmy-nominated documentary producer working as a reporter and editor on the News Verification desk in New York. Tulp started at AP as a news associate in Atlanta, where she contributed to coverage of major news events across the South, including Georgia’s key role in the 2020 presidential election. Originally from Kansas, Tulp graduated from Ithaca College in 2019 through the Park Scholar program.

    ABRIL MULATO is an editor based in Mexico City. With 12 years of experience in media, she has worked as a reporter, photographer and editor in national and international media outlets such as Reforma, El País, NBC Telemundo, Vanity Fair and GQ. She has also worked with several digital Communications agencies such as Clarus Digital, Zimat Consultores and The conversationalist agency, coordinating and executing social media and content strategies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Journalism School Carlos Septién García.

    Abril Mulato es editora de verificación en la Ciudad de México. A lo largo de 12 años ha trabajado como fotógrafa, reportera y editora en medios nacionales e internacionales como Reforma, El país, NBC Telemundo, Vanity Fair y GQ. También ha colaborado con diversas agencias de comunicación digital como Clarus Digital, Zimat Consultores y The conversationalist agency coordinando y ejecutando estrategias de redes sociales y contenido. Es licenciada en periodismo por la Escuela de Periodismo Carlos Septién García.

    MARCOS MARTINEZ CHACON is a reporter based in Monterrey, Mexico. He has collaborated with national and international media outlets such as the BBC, Univision Noticias, The San Francisco Chronicle, Grupo Reforma, and Aristegui Noticias. At the BBC, he worked from the Miami bureau as a digital journalist for BBC Monitoring, a BBC News division, where he focused on Latin America and collaborated in the production of podcasts around the spread of fake news in Mexico and other countries for BBC Trending. He holds a master’s degree from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he collaborated in several projects at the Investigative Reporting Program.

    Marcos Martínez Chacón es un periodista de verificación en la Ciudad de México. Ha colaborado con medios nacionales e internacionales como la BBC, Univision Noticias, The San Francisco Chronicle, Grupo Reforma y Aristegui Noticias. En la BBC, desde la oficina de Miami, se desempeñó como periodista digital para BBC Monitoring, una división de BBC News, donde se enfocó en latinoamérica. También colaboró en la producción de podcasts sobre la diseminación de noticias falsas en México y otros países para BBC Trending. Obtuvo una maestría de la Escuela de Periodismo de la Universidad de California en Berkeley. En UC Berkeley, colaboró en diversos proyectos en el Programa de Periodismo de Investigación.

    ABRIL MULATO is an editor based in Mexico City. With 12 years of experience in media, she has worked as a reporter, photographer and editor in national and international media outlets such as Reforma, El País, NBC Telemundo, Vanity Fair and GQ. She has also worked with several digital Communications agencies such as Clarus Digital, Zimat Consultores and The conversationalist agency, coordinating and executing social media and content strategies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Journalism School Carlos Septién García.

    Abril Mulato es editora de verificación en la Ciudad de México. A lo largo de 12 años ha trabajado como fotógrafa, reportera y editora en medios nacionales e internacionales como Reforma, El país, NBC Telemundo, Vanity Fair y GQ. También ha colaborado con diversas agencias de comunicación digital como Clarus Digital, Zimat Consultores y The conversationalist agency coordinando y ejecutando estrategias de redes sociales y contenido. Es licenciada en periodismo por la Escuela de Periodismo Carlos Septién García.

    DAVID KLEPPER is an election misinformation reporter based in Providence, Rhode Island. He worked for newspapers in South Carolina and Kansas City before joining the AP in 2011. A native of the Chicago suburbs, he earned degrees from the University of Illinois and the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

    CAL WOODWARD has been fact-checking public figures for more than 20 years under an AP initiative that took form in the 1996 election, advanced in 2000 and became a key component of our accountability journalism through that decade. A national writer, editor and essayist, he has been writing and coordinating Washington-based fact checks as his primary work since before the 2012 election. In this time, AP’s effort has greatly expanded beyond campaign and top presidential rhetoric to include statements from all manner of public figures. In the lead-up to the Iraq war, Woodward’s fact checks stood as a rare voice calling attention to the unverified rationales for the invasion. In the 2008 campaign, he worked with our health policy reporter to inform voters that Barack Obama’s proposed health overhaul did not substantiate his claims that people would see lower premiums and maintain the right to choose their own doctors. Woodward came to AP from The Canadian Press, where he covered U.S. politics, the United Nations, culture and sports from New York and Washington, after serving as a regional news editor and reporter in Canada.

    HOPE YEN is a national reporter based in Washington, D.C. She regularly contributes fact check stories in tandem with senior writer and editor Calvin Woodward. In her 15 years in Washington, she has reported on the Supreme Court, demographics, veterans affairs and politics. Her methodical count of the Democratic delegates in the 2016 presidential election was cited by Politico as “one of the 16 stories that changed the 2016 race,” confirming before every other news outlet that Hillary Clinton would win her party’s nomination. Yen previously covered business and the courts for the AP in New York City, Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa.

    OUR WORK:

    We produce fact checks when we are presented with a claim from a newsmaker – in any format – that deserves further explanation or scrutiny. The AP Fact Check team, along with our experts in the field, investigates and reports out that claim to present the facts around it. These claims can come from newsmakers from any news department, and they are fact-checked by our AP experts, with oversight, guidance and reporting help from the AP Fact Check team.

    The AP Fact Check team also produces items that debunk misleading or false information and visuals that are gaining significant traction online. This includes collaborative projects with Facebook and Twitter to add factual context to misleading posts on their platforms.

    CORRECTIONS

    The fact-checking team follows the AP correction policy.

    COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS/CLAIMS TO SUBMIT

    Want to reach out with a comment or fact-checking suggestion? Do you see something that needs a correction? Email us at FactCheck@ap.org.

    You can also file a complaint with the International Fact Checking Network if you feel that AP or any other IFCN member has violated the fact-checkers’ code of principles.

    ABOUT THE AP

    The AP is an independent, not-for-profit news cooperative composed of newspapers and broadcasters. The vast majority of AP’s revenue comes from licensing content to news outlets and other organizations. The AP Fact Check team is funded by AP’s general news budget and has previously received funding from the Knight Foundation.

    Read more about the AP.

    See AP’s 2019 annual report.

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  • Defibrillators in telephone booths long preceded COVID

    Defibrillators in telephone booths long preceded COVID

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    CLAIM: British telephone booths are being retrofitted with defibrillators because the COVID-19 vaccines are causing more cardiac arrests.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. A movement to install defibrillators in telephone kiosks across the U.K. is more than a decade old and didn’t result from the coronavirus or vaccines, according to Community Heartbeat Trust, the charity that originated the idea. One of the lifesaving devices featured in many recent posts was installed in the U.K. in 2017, years before the pandemic. Cardiologists say there’s no evidence to suggest COVID-19 vaccines are causing an increased rate of cardiac arrests.

    THE FACTS: A video of a telephone booth-turned-defibrillator in the British countryside amassed millions of views on Twitter this week, alongside suggestions that it symbolized a new movement to mitigate vaccine-related deaths by installing the tool in public spaces.

    The video shows one of the U.K.’s iconic red phone booths nestled beside a stone wall and in front of a stone cottage, with a yellow defibrillator visible inside.

    “A British phone booth that’s been converted into a defibrillator. I wonder why the government is installing defibrillators on the streets now,” read one tweet, adding a syringe emoji to suggest the move was linked to vaccines.

    “The new normal,” wrote a Twitter user that has spread numerous debunked claims about vaccines causing medical emergencies and deaths.

    However, the defibrillator shown in the video is not new as the posts imply, nor is the effort to install the devices in telephone booths a result of the pandemic, according to the nonprofit that started it.

    “I can categorically state that these are NOT appearing as a result of COVID,” Community Heartbeat Trust National Secretary Martin Fagan wrote in an email to The Associated Press, calling the claims “misinformation.”

    A cabinet number on the device that is visible in the video reveals it is in Corfe Castle, a village in Dorset, England. It was installed in June 2017 after a fundraising campaign by the wife of a man who died cycling, Fagan wrote. The man led a specialized food company, and to raise funds, the company sold a special yogurt, Fagan said.

    “In total, 17 locations were installed across the UK in his memory, at locations that meant something to him,” Fagan wrote. “It is a great story and case history.”

    The Corfe Castle defibrillator can be seen in historical Google Street View imagery from July 2018.

    The device is one of around a thousand that Community Heartbeat Trust has installed in telephone booths across the U.K. in a movement that started in 2009, Fagan said. Other organizations have followed the charity’s lead, repurposing outdated telephone boxes to house the devices, which significantly improves chances of survival when used after sudden cardiac arrest.

    News reports dating back a decade back up Fagan’s comments, showing telephone kiosks have long been converted into defibrillators across the U.K. and Ireland as a response to sudden cardiac arrests in the population.

    Cardiologists told the AP that having the devices available in public spaces has greatly improved survival rates in people who experience a cardiac emergency.

    Despite widespread online claims that COVID-19 vaccines are causing cardiac arrests, cardiologists say there’s no evidence of a link between the two, among athletes or in the general population.

    “We have not seen an increase in sudden cardiac arrest as it relates to the vaccine,” said Dr. Matthew Martinez, director of sports cardiology at Atlantic Health System in Morristown Medical Center.

    Monitoring systems that track people who have been vaccinated would have identified a link between the vaccine and cardiac arrest if it existed, and they haven’t, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

    Studies examining rare cases of myocarditis and pericarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle or its surrounding tissues that is typically mild — after vaccination haven’t found any increased risk of death or cardiac arrest among the those who’ve received COVID-19 shots, according to the British Heart Foundation.

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • Hamlin’s collapse spurs new wave of vaccine misinformation

    Hamlin’s collapse spurs new wave of vaccine misinformation

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Unfounded claims about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines proliferated in the hours and days after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during Monday’s game, revealing how pervasive vaccine misinformation remains three years after the pandemic began.

    Even before Hamlin was carried off the field in Cincinnati, posts amassing thousands of shares and millions of views began circulating online claiming without evidence that complications from COVID-19 vaccines caused his health emergency.

    While cardiac specialists say it’s too soon to know what caused Hamlin’s heart to stop, they’ve offered a rare type of trauma called commotio cordis as among the possible culprits. Physicians interviewed by The Associated Press say there’s no indication Hamlin’s vaccine status played a role, and said there’s no evidence to support claims that a number of young athletes have died as a result of COVID vaccinations.

    Peter McCullough, a Dallas cardiologist and outspoken vaccine critic, amplified the theories on a Fox News segment hosted by Tucker Carlson on Tuesday, speculating that “vaccine-induced myocarditis,” may have caused Hamlin’s episode. While the Bills have not said whether Hamlin was vaccinated, about 95% of NFL players have received a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the league.

    In his Tuesday segment, Carlson claimed McCullough and another researcher found that “more than 1,500 total cardiac arrests” have occurred among European athletes “since the vax campaign began.”

    But Carlson was citing a letter in which the authors’ evidence was a dubious blog that lists news reports of people all over the world, of all ages, dying or experiencing medical emergencies. The blog proves no relationship between the incidents and COVID-19 vaccines; it also includes in its count reported deaths from cancer and emergencies of unknown causes.

    “It’s not real research, but he quotes it as if it’s real research,” said Dr. Matthew Martinez, director of sports cardiology at Atlantic Health System in Morristown Medical Center. “Anybody can write a letter to the editor and then quote an article that has no academic rigor.”

    Many social media users have also shared deceptive videos that purport to show athletes collapsing on-field because of COVID-19 vaccines. However, several of the cases shown have been proven to be from other causes.

    Though anti-vaccine influencers have insisted that sudden cardiac arrests during sports games are unprecedented, cardiologists say they’ve observed these traumatic events throughout their careers, and long before the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “There have always been cases of athletes having sudden cardiac death or cardiac arrest,” said Dr. Lawrence Phillips, sports health expert and cardiologist at NYU Langone Health. “I have not seen a change in the prevalence of them over the last couple of years versus earlier in my career.”

    In fact, Phillips said, these rare medical emergencies are the main reason that doctors and activists have spent years campaigning for defibrillators to be on standby at sporting events.

    That push, and the implementation of emergency action plans, has improved outcomes after cardiac events on the playing field, even as the number of such events has remained “remarkably stable,” Martinez said.

    Martinez, who has worked for the National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and Major League Soccer, said he has investigated but not seen any signal that COVID-19 or vaccines are causing an increased incidence of cardiac events among athletes.

    His research shows that among professional athletes who have had COVID-19, rates of inflammatory heart disease were about 0.6% — showing no increased risk compared to other viruses.

    Online posts mentioning Hamlin and vaccines soared into the thousands within one hour of Hamlin’s collapse, according to an analysis conducted for the AP by Zignal Labs, a San Francisco-based media intelligence company.

    It’s not surprising that misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccines surged following Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, given how much vaccine misinformation has spread since the pandemic began, said Jeanine Guidry, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor who researches health misinformation and vaccine hesitancy.

    High-profile public events like Hamlin’s collapse often create new waves of misinformation as people grasp for explanations. For people concerned about vaccine safety, Hamlin’s sudden collapse served to affirm and justify their beliefs, Guidry said.

    “This happened to a person in the prime of their life, on primetime television, and the people watching didn’t immediately know why,” she said. “We like to have clear answers that make us feel safer. Especially after the last three years, I think this is coming from fear and uncertainty.”

    Similarly unfounded claims about vaccine injuries surged last month following the death of sports journalist Grant Wahl, who died of a ruptured blood vessel in his heart while covering the World Cup in Qatar. His death was not related to vaccines.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Claims baselessly link COVID vaccines to athlete deaths

    CLAIM: Two researchers found that more than 1,500 athletes have suffered cardiac arrest since COVID-19 vaccinations began, compared to a previous average of 29 athletes per year, suggesting the vaccines are causing a dramatic rise in such cardiac issues.

    THE FACTS: The researchers cited a number from a blog that lists news stories about recent deaths and medical emergencies among people of all ages, from all over the world — some of which were attributed to other causes. Following Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest during a game Monday, social media posts and Fox News gave air to a long-circulating and faulty narrative that COVID-19 vaccines are causing a dramatic increase in athlete deaths. “Cardiologist Peter McCullough and researcher Panagis Polykretis looked into this trend in Europe, European sports leagues. They found that prior to COVID and the COVID-19 vaccines there were roughly 29 cardiac arrests in those European sports leagues per year,” Fox’s Tucker Carlson claimed in a segment Tuesday. “Since the vax campaign began, there have been more than 1,500 total cardiac arrests in those leagues and two-thirds of those were fatal.” Carlson was in fact referencing a letter, not a rigorous study, that McCullough and Polykretis published in a Scandinavian journal in late 2022. And that letter simply cites the blog goodsciencing.com. The blog’s list is a compilation of news reports about recent deaths and medical emergencies, and it includes cases not reported to be spurred by cardiac arrest: Some deaths, for example, were reportedly from cancer. The list also includes incidents from around the world and among people of all ages — including some in their 70s and 80s — not just athletes in “European sports leagues,” as Carlson claimed. “It’s not real research,” Dr. Matthew Martinez, director of sports cardiology at Atlantic Health System in Morristown Medical Center, told the AP. “Anybody can write a letter to the editor and then quote an article that has no academic rigor.” Dr. Jonathan Kim, chief of sports cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine, similarly said of the blog post: “It’s just shocking to use that as a citation.” “It’s scientific garbage, you can’t just pull a bunch of media reports,” he added. The letter by McCullough and Polykretis goes on to compare the blog’s questionable “1,598” figure of recent incidents to a 2006 study that found 1,101 reports of sudden cardiac death in athletes over a 38-year period, or an average of 29 per year. That analysis, however, reviewed literature specifically for reports of sudden cardiac death among athletes under the age of 35. The study also noted that its findings were limited because cases were likely underestimated.” Dr. Neel Chokshi, medical director of Penn Medicine’s Sports Cardiology and Fitness Program, said it would be “inaccurate” to make conclusions by comparing the 2006 study and the blog’s figures. “The data presented here does not support the notion that vaccines have caused an increase in sudden death,” he said. The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna do carry a rare risk of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, though experts and officials say the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks. Cardiologists have told the AP that they have not observed the dramatic increase in sudden cardiac arrest as alleged on social media. McCullough and Fox News did not return requests for comment.

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report with additional reporting from Ali Swenson and Sophia Tulp in New York.

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    Video shows months-old interview with Tucker Carlson and Andrew Tate

    CLAIM: Social media personality Andrew Tate has been released from custody in Romania, an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson shows.

    THE FACTS: The Fox Nation interview was posted on Aug. 25, 2022, on Carlson’s social media accounts. Tate, along with three others, will be detained for 30 days in Romania during an investigation. Last week, Tate, a former professional kickboxer, was detained in Romania on charges of human trafficking and rape, according to officials. In the aftermath, multiple social media users resurfaced a months-old clip of Carlson interviewing Tate, claiming the video showed Tate after being released from custody. “ANDREW TATE and his Brother have been Released. NO CHARGES,” claims a tweet containing the video. In the shortened clip posted on social media, Carlson asks Tate whether he was arrested in Romania for human trafficking. Tate responds, “I was not arrested. So, what happened is, I suffered from a case of swatting. It’s very popular with people who are large on the internet. Many large YouTubers have been swatted. It’s where you call the police and you say somebody has a gun or there’s a hostage situation, and the swat team arrives.” But the clip was published months before Tate was detained last week. A longer clip of the interview was published on Carlson’s Facebook page on Aug. 25. On Dec. 29, Tate, a British citizen, was initially being held with his brother Tristan and two Romanians for 24 hours north of Romania’s capital, Bucharest. A judge extended their detention period to 30 days from their initial detention period, ​​said Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Romanian anti-organized crime agency DIICOT. Bolla said the decision wasn’t final and that all four suspects have already appealed the extension, the AP reported. Tate was previously banned from multiple social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech.

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    COVID treatments weren’t suppressed to OK vaccines’ emergency use

    CLAIM: Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were suppressed as COVID-19 treatments because the vaccines couldn’t receive emergency use authorization if such treatments were available.

    THE FACTS: There is nothing in federal law or regulation that prohibits a preventative measure such as a vaccine from being authorized for emergency use because a treatment is available, experts and officials say. Social media users are sharing a conspiracy theory that posits that the drugs hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were withheld as COVID-19 treatments by officials in order to greenlight vaccines under emergency use authorization. That’s wrong, experts and officials told the AP. The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were all initially made available under emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration — though the Pfizer and Moderna shots were later fully approved for certain people. An emergency use authorization, the FDA explains, allows the use of unapproved medical products — or the unapproved uses of approved medical products — in emergency situations in which “there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.” But the FDA said in a statement that an “available treatment for COVID-19 does not preclude the FDA from authorizing a vaccine to prevent COVID-19.” Likewise, Ana Santos Rutschman, a law professor at Villanova University with expertise in vaccine law and policy, said there is nothing in federal law or FDA regulation indicating that the existence of a treatment for a particular disease means that an emergency use authorization can’t be issued for a preventative measure such as a vaccine. “These are two separate types of drugs and tools in the public health toolkit and there may be a need for one of these products or for both of them under an EUA situation,” she said in an email. The FDA also had approved the drug remdesivir for use in hospitalized COVID-19 patients in October 2020 — two months before the agency authorized the first COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. In addition, the agency had issued an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients before the vaccines were available, noted Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a Harvard Medical School professor and expert on regulation. Hydroxychloroquine was in fact granted emergency use authorization for COVID-19 in 2020, too. The anti-malaria drug was authorized to be used for certain hospitalized COVID-19 patients, but the FDA revoked that authorization in June 2020, saying emerging data suggested it was “unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19 for the authorized uses in the EUA.” Current COVID-19 treatment guidelines from the National Institutes of Health recommend against the use of ivermectin for treating the disease, except in clinical trials, because studies to date have not demonstrated efficacy for the anti-parasitic drug.

    — Angelo Fichera

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    Video of snow-covered deer is from Kazakhstan, not the US

    CLAIM: A video of people helping a deer whose head is covered in snow was recorded in the U.S. during a massive winter storm that killed at least 34 people in late December.

    THE FACTS: The video of the snow-covered deer was recorded in Kazakhstan and has been online since at least March 2021, when it was featured in a local news report. The video has circulated widely on social media in recent days, with many users claiming it was filmed amid the recent extreme weather in North America. In the footage, the deer can be seen standing in a road, and then laying on the ground while a person removes snow packed around the animal’s face. Claims that it was taken recently in the U.S. or Canada circulated in both English and Spanish. But the footage was recorded in Kazakhstan and has been online since at least March 2021. A media outlet in Kazakhstan published a news report featuring the video dated March 2, 2021. The report notes that it was filmed by one of two brothers who were driving in Kazakhstan. A Facebook user matching the name of one of the brothers identified in the report, Abylaikhan Kuandyk, shared a version of the video published by Russian news outlet RT on March 8, 2021 and wrote in the post, “Me and my Brother Nurzhan Makayev.” The Facebook user did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment. The deer shown in the video clip is likely a roe deer, Timothy Van Deelen, a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the AP. The species is prevalent in Eurasia and is not native to North America. The absence of a white throat patch or bright white hair on the belly of the deer in the video indicates that it is not a white-tailed deer, Van Deelen added. The deer in the video also appears to have white rump akin to that of a roe deer.

    — Associated Press writers Josh Kelety in Phoenix and León Ramírez in Mexico City contributed this report.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

    ___

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  • FACT FOCUS: 5 full-court shots a stretch even for Curry

    FACT FOCUS: 5 full-court shots a stretch even for Curry

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    Stephen Curry is known for hitting deep 3-point shots and buzzer-beaters from half-court — but even the celebrated Warriors guard didn’t sink five consecutive full-court baskets, despite a convincingly edited video that swept social media this week.

    The clip of the 34-year-old NBA star racked up more than 28 million views and more than 40,000 shares on Twitter after Sports Illustrated posted it on Sunday.

    “Steph Gonna STEPH,” the Warriors tweeted.

    “Mark him as a menace to society,” Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant wrote.

    However, five full-court shots in a row would have been an otherworldly feat even for Curry, the reigning NBA Finals MVP for the defending champion Warriors and the NBA’s all-time 3-point leader since he passed Ray Allen last December.

    Here’s a look at the facts.

    CLAIM: A video posted online by Sports Illustrated shows Curry making five consecutive full-court shots.

    THE FACTS: “If it’s on the internet, it’s real! Right, Klay? It’s real! It’s REAL!” Curry yelled to an Associated Press reporter on Monday, referring to his teammate Klay Thompson before scurrying away in delight.

    But Curry was just having some fun. The clip of him lobbing five one-handed shots across the full length of a practice court, sinking every one, was “not real,” said Raymond Ridder, Warriors senior vice president of communications.

    “He could do that, but not five in a row,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I think just the fact that it’s Steph made people pause and wonder if it was real. That’s all you need to know about Steph. Pretty remarkable.”

    Sports Illustrated tweeted the clip on Sunday saying, “Just finished a shoot with @stephencurry30, this dude just can’t miss.” Its tweet credited the video to Ari Fararooy, a video creator known for executing similar video tricks with seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady.

    The video appeared ahead of Sports Illustrated’s announcement of Curry as a December cover star and 2022 Sportsperson of the Year. The outlet on Tuesday acknowledged that the video “is, in fact, not real.”

    “We had some fun with it,” Curry said in a postgame interview Monday. “I did make two of them, though, just in case anybody was wondering.”

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    All votes counted in Maricopa County, despite online claims

    CLAIM: Uncounted ballots that got mixed with counted ballots at voting sites in Arizona’s Maricopa County were not included in the final midterm election results.

    THE FACTS: While such ballots were mixed at two separate voting centers on Election Day, they were properly vetted and accurately tabulated, officials said. During November’s midterm elections, a printing malfunction caused tabulation machines at dozens of voting sites in Maricopa County to reject ballots on Election Day. Poll workers advised voters whose ballots were rejected to put them in a secure drop box referred to as “door 3” or “box 3” to be counted later at the county’s central tabulation facility. And while poll workers were trained to keep such yet-to-be-counted votes separate from those tabulated on-site, the ballots were “returned together,” Megan Gilbertson, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections Department, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. As the state certified its results this week, posts continued to circulate on social media falsely claiming that those ballots were never counted in the final results, with users citing a video of a self-described poll observer speaking at a Nov. 28 Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting. The woman in the video said that such ballots were combined at her voting site located “off of Camelback and 7th street.” “They commingled the un-tabulated ballots of drawer 3 with the tabulated ballots,” the woman says in the clip, referring to box 3. “There is no way to ever sort that and track that. Those are lost votes. Those are lost voices.” But, as the county explained in the days after the election, there is a way to sort and track such ballots, and the votes were counted in the final results. Additionally, such ballot mixing only occurred at two voting locations: Desert Hills Community Church in North Phoenix and the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS in Gilbert, according to Gilbertson. There is no record of such ballot mixing occurring at other voting centers, and the county never received a report of the issue occurring at the voting site described by the woman, Gilbertson told the AP by phone on Wednesday. An attempt to reach the woman who made the claim during the Nov. 28 meeting was unsuccessful. At the sites where mixing did occur, affected ballots were isolated and audited to make sure no votes were missed or double counted, Gilbertson wrote in an email this week. That process, called audit reconciliation, involves checking that the total number of ballots from a given vote center matches with the number of voters who checked-in at the site. Observers from both political parties were present. All Election Day ballots are required to undergo the process. “We have redundancies in place that help us ensure each legal ballot is only counted once,” Gilbertson wrote. “This process ensures that no ballot was double counted and that all ballots cast at the Vote Center were counted.” In a November report responding to questions from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the Maricopa County Elections Department similarly asserted it “retabulated the entire batch of ballots” from the two affected voting centers to ensure the accuracy of the count. Gilbertson said in the days after the election that similar mistakes have been made before, and the process to address it has been in place for decades, the AP reported. “Every single polling location in Maricopa County has a reconciliation audit that’s completed for every single election,” said Tammy Patrick, a former federal compliance officer for the county election department. “It’s been that way literally for 30 years or more.”

    — Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.

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    Patent application doesn’t show COVID test was developed in 2015

    CLAIM: A COVID-19 test patent application is dated 2020 but was actually filed in 2015.

    THE FACTS: The patent application, for a system to determine if someone has a viral infection such as COVID-19, notes that a related provisional patent application was filed in 2015. But while the earlier provisional application is related to the technology in the 2020 application, it made no mention of COVID-19. Social media users are sharing the inaccurate claim through a meme, which implies that COVID-19 was actually known years before it emerged in late 2019. The meme also suggests such information is being censored on social media. “The patent of the covid testkit is hold by Richard A. Rothchild,” a meme shared on Instagram reads, incorrectly spelling the last name of the inventor, Rothschild. “It’s dated in 2020 but was filled 10/13/2015 and it’s called US2020279585(A1).” But the patent application in question was filed in May 2020 and describes a method of using biometric data to “to determine whether the user is suffering from a viral infection, such as COVID-19.” Under a section titled “Related U.S. Application Data,” the application makes note of a provisional application filed on Oct. 13, 2015. What that means, though, is that the patent is related to the provisional application that was filed years ago. They are not one in the same. A provisional application is essentially a placeholder for an intention to file a formal patent application, said Jonathan D’Silva, an assistant professor of clinical law and director of the Intellectual Property Law Clinic at Penn State University. Inventors may file a provisional application for different reasons, such as raising money or publicly disclosing their idea as they work on it, he said. The provisional application in 2015 was for a “System and Method for Using, Processing, and Displaying Biometric Data.” The 2020 patent application, meanwhile, was a “continuation-in-part” of a previous patent application, which means that new material was added, D’Silva said. In this case, the new material included the references to COVID-19. “Generally, you don’t have to guess what was in these other patent applications,” he said, since they’re publicly available. And in the earlier parent applications, “there was no mention of COVID-19.”

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report.

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    Post distorts facts on registered voters in Arizona

    CLAIM: Arizona has 9,871,525 registered voters but its population is 7,270,000.

    THE FACTS: The state had about 4 million registered voters, which is millions less than its population of about 7 million people. A popular Instagram post is using the erroneous claim to suggest potential election fraud in the state, which has been home to midterm election controversy. “9,871,525 is the number of registered voters in AZ according to FB,” the post reads, “AZ population is 7,270,000.” A caption with the post reads, “ballot harvesting?” — the pejorative term for ballot collection. The laws around dropping off ballots for other voters varies by state and in Arizona, only caregivers, family members or household members can drop off a ballot for someone else. But the post’s claim about registered voters in Arizona is false. Arizona actually logged 4,143,929 voters for the Nov. 8 midterm elections, according to data from the Arizona Secretary of State’s office. The total population in Arizona was 7,276,316, according to a July 2021 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau.

    — Angelo Fichera

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    Fabricated tweets originated from account impersonating Hallie Biden

    CLAIM: President Joe Biden’s daughter-in-law Hallie Biden tweeted that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. She also tweeted that on election night, first lady Jill Biden phoned election workers to stop counting ballots and “rush in fake ballots.”

    THE FACTS: The account that made these tweets is “fraudulent,” said the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children, whose board Hallie Biden chairs. President Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election, earning 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, and there was no evidence of widespread fraud. The fabricated tweets attributed to Hallie Biden — the widow of the president’s deceased son Beau Biden — resurfaced after circulating in past months. The fake tweets claim that on election night in 2020, Jill Biden was on the phone with “state legislators and the people who tabulate the vote” to stop the count and execute a deal to “rush in fake ballots.” “President Trump won that election and my entire family knows it,” one of the fabricated tweets reads. “Ms. Hallie Biden does not have a Twitter account,” the foundation said in an emailed statement. “Any account bearing her name is fraudulent.” An internet archive search for the Twitter account that posted the tweets, @HallieBiden, shows that it was suspended for violating the platform’s rules between late August and early September 2022. The platform had a policy against impersonation, which it has continued to prioritize under new ownership. Archived versions of the account show that it posted numerous false and unverified claims about the election being stolen and about Presidents Biden and Obama and their families.

    — Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Traffic plan in Oxfordshire, England, isn’t a ‘climate lockdown’

    CLAIM: The county of Oxfordshire, England, which includes the city of Oxford, is imposing a “climate lockdown” that will confine residents to their neighborhoods.

    THE FACTS: Oxfordshire has approved a plan to put “traffic filters” on some main roads, restricting drivers’ access during daytime hours and freeing up space for buses, cyclists and pedestrians. But car owners can apply for daylong permits to bypass the new rules, and many other vehicles are exempt. All parts of the county will remain accessible by car, officials said. Last week, local leaders in Oxfordshire voted to try a new traffic reduction system in an effort to reduce congestion in the county’s namesake city. Some on social media have since likened the scheme to stringent government COVID-19 containment policies. “UK. – Oxfordshire Council, part of the 15 minute city club, has passed a plan to trial a Climate lockdown,” tweeted one user, alongside a screenshot of an article warning that “residents will be confined to their local neighbourhood.” The plan “would control movements in a gated city, allowing only 100 car journeys in & out per car & monitoring all movements,” the tweet continued. But Oxfordshire’s “traffic filters” will not block access to any part of the city of Oxford or the rest of the county, let alone lock people in their neighborhoods, the county government told The Associated Press. “Everywhere in the city will still be accessible by car,” Paul Smith, spokesperson for the Oxfordshire County Council, wrote in an email. “Nobody will need permission from the county council to drive or leave their home.” The “traffic filters” are license plate recognition cameras, not physical barriers. From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., drivers in private cars will be automatically fined if they cross through the filters without a permit. Motorists who live in Oxford will be able to apply for 100 daylong permits to drive through the filters per year. The “15 minute city club” referenced by one of the misleading tweets is an unrelated urban planning framework under which city residents would ideally be able to reach essential services within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their home. Officials with the city of Oxford have separately proposed pursuing these goals. But some on social media have incorrectly linked the two, suggesting the traffic rules will also bar residents from leaving their neighborhoods. The city and county emphasized in a joint statement that the traffic restrictions will not “be used to confine people” to a given area. “Everyone can go through all the filters at any time by bus, bike, taxi, scooter or walking,” the statement added. Many vehicles, like vans and motorcycles, are exempt from the new rules. Disabled drivers and first responders will likewise not be affected. Drivers who lack a permit will also still be able to access all of the city without being fined. They “might just need to use a different route or drive through the ring road to avoid the traffic filters,” Smith wrote.

    — Associated Press writer Graph Massara in San Francisco contributed this report.

    ___

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  • New Hampshire town’s vote oddity was human error, not fraud

    New Hampshire town’s vote oddity was human error, not fraud

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    CLAIM: Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan received 1,100 votes in a New Hampshire town with only 700 residents, suggesting fraud.

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The town clerk of Columbia, New Hampshire, confirmed that she miswrote 106 votes as 1,106 votes, causing a temporary reporting error that has been corrected. The error didn’t change the results of the statewide Senate race, which Hassan won by more than 56,000 votes.

    THE FACTS: Social media users this week pointed out an apparent vote discrepancy in Columbia, New Hampshire, claiming Hassan received more votes in the midterm election than there were residents in the small town.

    “Another Democrat miracle!” read one headline. “Maggie Hassan Wins 1,100 Votes from Town with Population Under 700.”

    “This requires open revolt of a fake election across the board,” a Twitter user wrote alongside the headline.

    Columbia reported a population of 659 people in the 2020 census.

    However, the discrepancy was the result of a temporary reporting error by Marcia Parkhurst, Columbia’s town clerk, who explained the situation in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

    “Apparently when I was transferring the results from one copy to the copy that I was going to send to the SOS, I wrote the ‘1’ twice,” Parkhurst wrote. “Obviously with only 309 votes cast, there couldn’t possibly be 1,106 votes for one person.”

    Parkhurst said that when she became aware of the error Monday morning, she immediately called the New Hampshire secretary of state’s office. That office had already been receiving calls noting the issue.

    “Unfortunately, I’m human and make mistakes especially after an almost 15 hour day,” Parkhurst wrote. “There was no “voter fraud” as people are talking about.”

    The secretary of state’s office issued its own statement on Monday, explaining that “the original figure entered was a simple typo.”

    “The reported number far exceeded the number of ballots actually cast in the town,” the statement said. “The Secretary of State has confirmed with the town clerk of Columbia that Senator Hassan only received 106 votes on election night.”

    Election results posted on the secretary of state’s website on Tuesday showed the correct vote totals. Statewide, Hassan beat Republican challenger Don Bolduc by more than 56,000 votes.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Split-ticket voting in Arizona isn’t a sign of fraud

    CLAIM: The fact that incumbent Republican state treasurer Kimberly Yee got tens of thousands more votes than GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake shows the Arizona election was rigged.

    THE FACTS: While Yee did get more votes, that isn’t proof of fraud. Many Arizona voters, including Republicans and independents, have a history of voting for candidates from both political parties. That continued this cycle. But as Lake lost her gubernatorial bid to Democrat Katie Hobbs in Arizona on Monday, social media users baselessly suggested that the fact that Yee garnered more votes than Lake was a sign of manipulation. “It makes no mathematical sense that the GOP State Treasurer just won reelection by 250,000 votes, but none of those voters also felt like voting for Kari Lake,” one Twitter user wrote Monday in a tweet shared over 7,000 times. Far from being a sign of election fraud, such results in Arizona indicate that voters picked candidates from both political parties or voted in some races and not others, experts and political operatives say. In fact, such voter behavior was common in 2022 in elections across the country. “Split-ticket voters are very common,” said Paul Bentz, a Republican pollster in Phoenix. “It happens all of the time. It speaks to the various strengths or drawbacks of a particular candidate.” Arizona voters in particular have a track record of not always voting along party lines. In 2018, many Arizona voters opted for Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who was running for U.S. Senate, and incumbent Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, Bentz said. And in this election, Republican Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell fended off her Democratic challenger, outperforming Lake. Lake, Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters and Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, all of whom lost, were all endorsed by Trump and promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Johnny Melton, acting chair of the Legislative District 29 Republicans in Maricopa County, said he personally knows Republicans and right-leaning independents who didn’t vote for candidates like Lake and Finchem due to their embrace of election conspiracies. “Of course I know people who either split or just withheld their vote,” Melton said.

    — Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.

    ___

    Posts misrepresent Arizona official’s ballot comments

    CLAIM: Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates admitted that tens of thousands of early ballots dropped off on Election Day were mishandled when he said during a CNN interview, “We do not know where these are from.”

    THE FACTS: The interview clip circulating on social media doesn’t show Gates admitting to misconduct. He was responding to a specific question from a CNN host about the geographic origin of absentee ballots in a batch that had just been tabulated. Social media users shared a clip of the Nov. 11 CNN interview with Gates, suggesting that it showed him admitting that tens of thousands of ballots were mishandled. “We do not know where these are from. These could be from anywhere in the county,” Gates said in the clip, referring to ballots tabulated that day. “This is not picked out of a certain area, these are not pulled by precinct.” Archived video of the complete interview shows Gates was responding to a question from CNN news anchor John King about the geographic origin of ballots in a batch of roughly 75,000 tabulated ballots released that day. King specifically asked about “late-earlies,” referring to absentee ballots that were mailed to voters ahead of the election and dropped off at voting sites on Election Day. King said, “Are we now, in the sense that you have a giant county, it’s 9,200 plus square miles, do you know, the ones that were released tonight, are they from the central Phoenix area, the more close-in suburbs that tend to be more Democratic?” In his response, which is where the clip circulating on social media begins, Gates explains that the majority of the 75,000 ballots were late-earlies, and he could not comment on their origin because of the way they are cast and tabulated in Maricopa. Almost all of Arizona’s vote happens by mail, although some voters cast their ballots in-person at voting centers. Election officials then release their vote totals in batches. Maricopa County allows voters to cast absentee ballots at any one of 223 vote centers across the county. Ballots dropped off on Election Day are driven to a central tabulation facility in downtown Phoenix. Those that arrive at the facility first get priority. Therefore, any batch of Maricopa votes could contain ballots from all over the county. The social media users sharing the clip of Gates are “misrepresenting what the chairman said,” Fields Moseley, a spokesperson for Maricopa County, wrote in an email to the AP. “While the chairman doesn’t know where every batch of ballots came from, our elections workers can account for all of them through documentation and chain of custody,” he wrote.

    — Josh Kelety

    ___

    States report election results at different speeds

    CLAIM: Florida’s ability to report election results quickly during the 2022 midterms means states that have taken longer, such as Arizona and Nevada, are engaged in fraud.

    THE FACTS: Florida has measures in place to speed up its count on Election Day. But the fact that Florida reports results faster than other states does not mean that those states are committing fraud, elections experts told the AP. Election officials repeatedly warned prior to the 2022 midterm elections that results in some states might not be known for days. Despite this, many falsely suggested the length of time is correlated with election integrity. Some compared Florida — which had finished counting its ballots, except those from overseas, by Wednesday — to Arizona and Nevada. “This is absurd. Arizona and Nevada have a lot fewer voters than Florida and yet they take days longer to tally the results,” one tweet said. “Total fraud.” Arizona had nearly 14,000 ballots left to count on Thursday. Sophia Solis, a spokesperson for the Arizona secretary of state’s office, told the AP that no counties in Arizona had fully reported their unofficial results by midnight on Election Day. In Nevada, all 17 counties submitted initial tallies, including in-person vote reports, to election administrators by the early morning hours of Nov. 9, Jennifer Russell, an aide to Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, told the AP Wednesday. However, the state accepted mail ballots postmarked by Election Day until Saturday, and had 22,000 left to process in the state’s largest county, Clark, the day of the deadline, Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said at a press conference. But states’ reporting speeds largely reflect the different ways absentee and mail-in ballots are processed in each jurisdiction, election experts told the AP. “There are many reasons Florida counts quicker than other states, or other states haven’t completed their counts yet, and it has nothing to do with fraud in other states,” Michael Morley, an election law expert and professor at Florida State University, wrote in an email. One of the main differences is how soon before Election Day officials are allowed to begin pre-processing early ballots, which may involve confirming their validity or scanning them, Morley wrote. Under state law, Florida officials can start this process nearly a month before Election Day. By contrast, Arizona counties did not send mail ballots to voters until Oct. 12 and the earliest they went out in Nevada was Oct. 7. Florida was required to send mail ballots no later than Sept. 24. Another key difference is whether states accept mail ballots after Election Day. In Florida, most mail ballots must be received by 7 p.m. local time on Election Day. Most early and mail voting results must be reported to the Florida Department of State starting within 30 minutes after the polls close and continuing every 45 minutes until all results are reported. Nevada, however, accepts mail ballots up to 5 p.m. four days after the election as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. Arizona’s deadline is the same as Florida’s, local time. Still, there is nothing unusual or improper about votes being counted after Election Day, said Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida. Morley explained that other differences that may speed up reporting include staffing levels, available equipment, the length of time needed to verify each ballot and how long after Election Day voters are able to fix, or “cure,” their ballots if any problems are found.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report with additional reporting from Ken Ritter in Las Vegas.

    ___

    Posts spin baseless theory about FTX, Ukraine and Democrats

    CLAIM: U.S. aid to Ukraine was laundered back to the Democratic Party through the failed cryptocurrency exchange firm FTX.

    THE FACTS: These claims misrepresent a short-term initiative in Ukraine that used FTX to convert cryptocurrency donations for the war effort into government-issued currency. The Ukrainian government has not invested nor stored money in FTX, according to the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. FTX, the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11 amid news it was short billions of dollars and may have been hacked. Sam Bankman-Fried, the company’s CEO, resigned the same day. The moves have fueled baseless conspiracy theories. “So Biden gave loads of money to Ukraine, who gave loads of money to FTX, who gave loads of money to Democrats,” reads one tweet with over 100,000 likes. No evidence has been presented to support the claims. Still, they have been shared by U.S. lawmakers, prominent Republicans and Russian accounts. Ukraine’s government “never invested any funds into FTX,” Alex Bornyakov, the deputy minister of digital transformation in Ukraine said on Twitter on Monday. After Russia invaded Ukraine, a new crypto fundraising foundation called Aid For Ukraine began taking donations to help the Ukrainian war effort, the ministry said in an emailed statement to the AP on Wednesday. The ministry said it “provided informational support” to the foundation, which was run by the cryptocurrency exchange Kuna and the blockchain company Everstake. In early March, Aid For Ukraine began working with FTX to convert cryptocurrency donations into Ukraine’s government-issued currency, a partnership that ended in April 2022, according to the ministry. Sergey Vasylchuk, the CEO of Everstake, told the AP that cryptocurrencies were an efficient way to raise funds for Ukraine to defend itself amid Russia’s invasion. He said FTX was only used in the beginning of the war to convert cryptocurrency donations. The donations would then get sent to the National Bank of Ukraine and no crypto was stored on FTX. Michael Chobanian, the founder of the Kuna exchange, said they had converted cryptocurrencies to U.S. dollars through FTX and deposited them in the national bank of Ukraine at the beginning of the war. “That is it,” Chobanian said. The Ministry of Digital Transformation added that it “has never funded FTX” and “has never worked with any political party of the United States of America.” It’s true that Bankman-Fried has been a major Democratic donor. FEC records show that he made significant donations to Democratic candidates and PACS this year. However, he has also made contributions to some Republican candidates and conservative-leaning PACS. FTX’s co-CEO Ryan Salame also donated to groups that supported Republican candidates in 2022. White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said any claim that U.S. assistance to Ukraine has “been diverted to aid American political parties is unequivocally false and not grounded in reality.” Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson at the State Department, said there’s “no reason to believe that these reports are anything but pure falsehoods and misinformation.” A spokesperson for the U.S. Agency for International Development said safeguards put in place by the World Bank, coupled with expert third-party monitoring support within the Ukrainian government, ensure accountability around the use of the funds. FTX and lawyers representing the company did not respond to requests for comment.

    — Associated Press writers Ali Swenson in New York and Karena Phan in Los Angeles contributed this report with additional reporting from Thalia Beaty in New York.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

    ___

    Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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  • Misinformation and the midterm elections: What to expect

    Misinformation and the midterm elections: What to expect

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    Conspiracy theories about mail ballots. Anonymous text messages warning voters to stay home. Fringe social media platforms where election misinformation spreads with impunity.

    Misinformation about the upcoming midterm elections has been building for months, challenging election officials and tech companies while offering another reminder of how conspiracy theories and distrust are shaping America’s politics.

    The claims are fueling the candidacies of election deniers and threatening to further corrode faith in voting and democracy. Many of them can be traced back to 2020, when then-President Donald Trump refused to accept the outcome of the election he lost to Joe Biden and began lying about its results.

    “Misinformation is going to be central to this midterm election and central to the 2024 election,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, who studies technological change and society and is the dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “The single galvanizing narrative is that the 2020 election was stolen.”

    A look at key misinformation challenges heading into the 2022 election:

    MISLEADING CLAIMS ABOUT VOTING

    Political misinformation often focuses on immigration, crime, public health, geopolitics, disasters, education or mass shootings. This year, it’s mostly about voting.

    Claims about the security of mail ballots have grown in recent weeks, as have baseless rumors about noncitizens voting. That’s in addition to claims about dead people casting ballots, ballot drop boxes being moved or wild stories about voting machines.

    Trump, a Republican, attacked the legitimacy of the election even before he lost. He then refused to concede, spreading lies about the election that inspired the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. His contention was rejected in more than 60 court cases and by his own attorney general, William Barr.

    Together, these misleading claims about the nation’s electoral system have led some Republicans to say they’re going to hold onto their mail ballots until Election Day — a move that could slow down the count.

    Others vow to monitor the polls to prevent cheating, leading to concerns about intimidation and even the possibility of violence at election sites.

    Tech companies say they’ve implemented new policies and programs designed to ferret out misinformation.

    “We’ve seen hundreds of elections play out on our platforms in recent years and we’ve been applying lessons from each one to strengthen our preparations,” Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said in a statement.

    Yet critics say the volume of false claims spreading now shows there’s more to be done, such as better enforcement of existing rules or government regulations requiring more aggressive policies.

    “This is no longer a new problem,” said Jon Lloyd, senior adviser at the nonprofit Global Witness, which last week released a report showing that TikTok failed to remove many advertisements that contain election misinformation. Big social media platforms, he said, “are still simply not doing enough to stop threats to democracy.”

    MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN — WHILE CLOCK IS TICKING

    Elections involve the combined efforts of tens of thousands of people working under pressure. Mistakes are expected, which is why there’s a robust system of checks and balances to ensure errors are found and corrected.

    Taken out of context, stories about glitchy voting machines, mixed-up ballots or even “suspicious” vehicles arriving at election centers can become fodder for the next election fraud myth.

    And with so much work to do at such a fast pace, election workers, local officials and even the media can have little time to push back on such claims before they go viral.

    In Georgia in 2020, a water leak at a site where ballots were being counted was used to spin a far-fetched tale of ballot rigging. In Arizona, the choice of pens given to voters filling out ballots led to similarly preposterous claims.

    To avoid falling for a misleading claim, consult multiple sources including local election offices. Any significant voting irregularity will be covered by multiple news outlets and addressed by election officials. Be skeptical of claims from second-hand sources, said Shaye-Ann McDonald, a behavioral researcher at Duke University who studies ways to improve resistance to misinformation.

    The most viral misinformation often elicits anger or fear that motivates readers to repost it before they’ve had time to coolly consider the underlying claim.

    “When you read about something that provokes a strong emotion, that should be a warning sign,” McDonald said.

    A MULTILINGUAL CHALLENGE

    Just before the 2020 election, Spanish-language Facebook ads falsely claimed Biden, a Democrat, was a communist. On other platforms, posts warned Latinos in the U.S. not to vote at all.

    Misinformation in non-English languages is a particular concern cited by researchers who say the major platforms — most of them U.S.-based — are focused on content moderation in English. Automated systems written to detect misinformation in English don’t work as well when applied to other languages.

    “As bad as they (tech companies) are moderating content in English, they’re even worse when it comes non-English languages,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-CEO of Free Press, a nonprofit that works on issues of racial justice and technology.

    MISINFORMATION BY TEXT?

    While misinformation about elections spreads easily on big social media platforms like Facebook, it also has taken root on a long list of less familiar platforms: Gab, Gettr, Parler and Truth Social, Trump’s platform.

    Meanwhile, TikTok has emerged as a key network for younger voters — and the politicians who want to reach them. The platform, owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance, has created an election center to connect users with trustworthy information about elections and voting. But nonetheless misinformation persists.

    The problem isn’t limited to social media. The number of false claims transmitted by text and email has steadily increased in recent years. Last summer, Democratic voters in Kansas received misleading texts telling them a yes vote on an upcoming referendum would protect abortion rights; the opposite was true.

    MUSK AND TWITTER

    Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter just weeks before the 2022 election upended that platform’s plans for combating misinformation ahead of the midterms.

    Musk quickly fired the executive who had overseen content moderation. Over the weekend he posted a tweet advancing a baseless conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, before deleting it.

    Musk has called himself a free speech absolutist and had said he disagreed with the decision to boot Trump from the platform for incitement of violence on Jan. 6, 2021.

    He has said that a content moderation committee will examine possible revisions to Twitter’s rules but that no changes would be made until after the election.

    “We’re staying vigilant against attempts to manipulate conversations about the 2022 US midterms.” Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tweeted Tuesday.

    THREATS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC

    Russian efforts to interfere in U.S. elections go back years, and there are indications that China and Iran are stepping up their game.

    Tech companies, government officials and misinformation researchers say they’re monitoring for such activity ahead of the midterms. But the misinformation threat posed by domestic groups may be far greater.

    ____

    Follow the AP’s coverage of misinformation at https://apnews.com/hub/misinformation. Follow the AP for full coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    False, unfounded claims distort attack on Paul Pelosi

    CLAIM: The attack was a “Domestic Violence Case in a consensual sexual relationship,” and the suspect was found in his underwear when police arrived at the house.

    THE FACTS: No evidence has been presented to support either assertion, both of which contradict what law enforcement officials have said and what court documents describe. In the days since the alleged assailant, identified as David DePape, 42, broke into the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacked her husband with a hammer, internet users amplified these false claims that mock the victim and give credence to insidious conspiracy theories. Baseless and homophobic claims suggesting a personal relationship between Paul Pelosi and DePape have been shared by prominent figures including elected officials, conservative pundits and Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, who later deleted his post. But San Francisco’s district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, told reporters on Sunday that there was “nothing to suggest that these two men knew each other prior to this incident.” She said during a press conference Monday the attack appeared to be politically motivated. Authorities have stated that DePape broke a glass door of the home and entered with a hammer, zip ties and other supplies, intending to kidnap the Democratic lawmaker. Jenkins’ office in a court filing Tuesday detailed the contents of a 911 call Pelosi made early on Oct. 28, during which Pelosi confirmed that he did not know DePape. Overhearing the call, DePape said aloud that his name was David and he was a “friend,” the filing said. Likewise, an FBI agent’s affidavit reports that Pelosi in the 911 call “conveyed that he does not know who the male is” and later told a police officer in the ambulance that he had never seen DePape before. DePape told police officers that he went to the home to take Nancy Pelosi hostage, according to the affidavit, and that he viewed her as a “‘leader of the pack’ of lies told by the Democratic Party.” Separately, the affidavit makes clear that DePape was wearing clothing at the time. “Officers removed a cell phone, cash, clipper cards, and an unidentified card from DEPAPE’s right shorts pocket,” the document reads. A local news outlet reported the baseless claim that DePape was in his underwear, but it later corrected its story. Pelosi, meanwhile, was asleep in his bed on the second floor of the home when DePape entered and woke him up, according to officials. “Mr. Pelosi, who was sleeping, was wearing a loose fitting pajama shirt and boxer shorts,” Jenkins, the district attorney, said Monday. DePape is facing multiple charges including attempted murder.

    — Associated Press writers Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia and Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    No, Pennsylvania didn’t send 255K ballots to ‘unverified’ voters

    CLAIM: Pennsylvania has sent “255,000 unverified” ballots to voters for the midterm elections.

    THE FACTS: The state didn’t send out that many ballots to unverified voters. This claim misrepresents a figure in a state database, which does not mean that the voters failed to provide correct identification information, nor that their identities weren’t ultimately verified. Social media posts and headlines promoted the false claim that Pennsylvania officials had issued around a quarter-million ballots to people whose identities weren’t confirmed. “CRISIS IN PENNSYLVANIA – 255,000 UNVERIFIED NEW VOTERS SENT BALLOTS – CANDIDATES BETTER CONTACT THEIR LAWYERS,” read an Oct. 26 headline from the website The Gateway Pundit. The story claims that this “is how Democrats cheat.” The story cites an Oct. 25 letter from Republican state lawmakers to the Pennsylvania secretary of state, which claimed the state had issued “over 240,000 unverified ballots.” A day earlier, an elections investigation group called Verity Vote issued a report making similar claims, citing a state database as evidence. But officials in Pennsylvania say the claim flagrantly misrepresents the way that the state classifies applications for mail-in and absentee ballots. “There are not 240,000+ ‘unverified ballots,’ as certain lawmakers are claiming,” Pennsylvania Department of State spokeswoman Amy Gulli said in a statement provided to the AP. In Pennsylvania, those applying for mail-in or absentee ballots must provide proof of identification — such as state driver’s license information or the last four digits of their Social Security Number. In some cases, a voter’s identifying information is automatically verified, including by cross-referencing it with Pennsylvania Department of Transportation data. However, in other cases, the voter’s identifying information must be vetted further. When that happens, the application enters the statewide system under a designation labeled “NV,” or “not verified.” Notably, the “not verified” designation doesn’t mean the voter didn’t provide accurate identification information, nor does it mean their ID wasn’t later verified. “The code does not reflect the results of any identification check but is, in fact, an additional mechanism to ensure that counties are properly verifying ID provided by voters,” acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman wrote in an Oct. 28 response letter to the Republican lawmakers. Chapman added that the “NV” status can also be applied to applications of voters who request to permanently receive mail-in ballots so that verification occurs for every election in which the ballot is issued. If a voter’s identification can’t be verified at the time they apply for a ballot, state law does require that the voter still be issued a ballot and be provided an opportunity until the sixth day after the election to provide the proper proof of identification. But counties are not to count the ballot unless the voter provides proof of identification. There are currently about 7,600 ballot applications in Pennsylvania that still require identification verification, according to the Department of State. Election officials use high-tech equipment that sorts out ballots that arrive but are still pending verification, said Al Schmidt, president and CEO of the Committee of Seventy, a nonpartisan group. “That vote won’t be counted unless the voter does what’s required — which is just to verify their ID,” said Schmidt, a former Philadelphia city commissioner. Verity Vote argues all verification should occur before a ballot is issued. “It seems reckless in the modern era, to send a ballot based on an unverified mail ballot application with the intention of verifying later,” the group said in a statement to the AP. The Gateway Pundit on Monday responded to an inquiry by forwarding responses from Verity Vote.

    — Angelo Fichera and Ali Swenson

    ___

    Pre-filled voter registration forms are not proof of fraud

    CLAIM: The campaign of Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is running for Texas governor, engaged in voter fraud by sending pre-filled voter registration forms to dead people.

    THE FACTS: While O’Rourke’s campaign did send out partially filled-out forms to encourage people to register before the Texas deadline, experts and government officials say that sending such forms is permitted under Texas law. Some social media users, however, have falsely claimed that O’Rourke’s campaign was engaging in voter fraud by trying to illegally register dead people to vote. “Beto O’Rourke’s campaign has also been sending pre-filled registration applications to dead voters,” a woman said in a video posted to Twitter that was shared more than 11,000 times. “This is literally right before the November elections and they’re sending this to dead voters. This is voter fraud.” O’Rourke’s campaign did send out application forms with people’s names, birthdays and addresses filled out to remind them to update their voter registration if they’d moved, or needed to register before the Texas deadline on Oct. 11, according to Chris Evans, the campaign’s director of communications. Evans acknowledged that the database the campaign uses for such mailings might contain errors. But he noted that all voter registration applications are reviewed by the state of Texas to make sure people who fill them out are eligible to vote. “An individual who is not eligible would have their application flagged by the state and be unable to successfully register,” he said. Texas election experts and officials concurred that a campaign sending out registration forms with select portions filled out is legally sound, even if a faulty mailing list leads to applications being sent to voters who have died. “Campaigns and third-party organizations that send people blank voter registration applications are allowed to pre-fill certain portions of the application,” Sam Taylor, a spokesperson for the Texas secretary of state’s office, told the AP. Texas election law allows for such pre-filled applications to already include the voter’s name, birthdate and address, Taylor said. He confirmed that all voter registration applications are subject to validation — including a comparison of information to Texas Department of Public Safety and Social Security Administration records. Individuals reported to those agencies as deceased would fail the validation process. D. Theodore Rave, a professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin, also told the AP that it’s not illegal to fill out information such as a name, address and birthday. It would be against state law to fill out other information, such as “statements that the voter is a U.S. citizen, a resident of the county, not incapacitated, and not a felon,” he wrote in an email.

    — Associated Press writers Angelo Fichera and Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Phillies fans’ cheers did not register on seismograph during Game 3

    CLAIM: Cheers by Philadelphia Phillies fans were so loud when Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm hit home runs that they registered on a seismograph at Penn State Brandywine.

    THE FACTS: While fans watching Game 3 of the World Series on Tuesday were loud, their cheering was not loud enough to register on the seismograph at Penn State Brandywine, according to geological experts. Fans at Citizens Bank Park were on their feet and roaring after the Phillies hit five home runs against the Houston Astros on Tuesday. Amid the excitement, rumors spread on social media that the fans’ shouts shook the earth hard enough that a seismometer picked them up. “Harper and Bohm homeruns are literally registering on the Penn State University Brandywine seismograph station. The city is physically shaking,” reads one tweet with more than 16,000 likes. The tweet shows a red and blue seismograph readout with two major spikes, one labeled “Harper HR” and the other “Bohm HR.” Another graph shared on Twitter also claimed to show that there was enough noise from the stadium to be measured on the seismometer, with a spike highlighted at 9 p.m. local time. However, these results don’t match the seismic data that the university recorded Tuesday night. Kyle Homman, who is the seismic network manager at Penn State, told the AP that there wasn’t any indication of an increase in seismic activity around the time of Harper’s and Bohm’s home runs. Homman also explained that the two spikes shown in the first chart are only a few minutes apart, which doesn’t match up with those two home runs. The red and blue graph was taken from a seismograph report from Lick Observatory near San Jose, Calif. The graph shows the readout of a magnitude 5.1 earthquake recorded in the San Francisco Bay Area last Tuesday. Both Homman and Laura Guertin, a professor of earth sciences at Penn State Brandywine, confirmed that the second graph was from Penn State. But they noted the timing of the quick spikes did not match the game. For sports events to register, the machines would need to be less than a mile away, Homman said. Citizens Bank Park is about 20 miles away from the Brandywine campus. “We definitely have a Phillies Red Wave going on, but not a seismic wave,” said Guertin. The Phillies’ home runs on Tuesday night tied with a World Series record and gave Philadelphia a 2-1 Series lead. But the lead shifted after the Astros won games on Wednesday and Thursday. Game 6 will be played on Saturday in Houston.

    — Associated Press writer Karena Phan in Los Angeles contributed this report.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

    ___

    Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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  • Why was I given a provisional ballot?

    Why was I given a provisional ballot?

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    Why was I given a provisional ballot?

    Provisional ballots are issued to voters at a polling location when there are eligibility questions that prevent them from casting a regular ballot on Election Day.

    “They are a fail-safe method to ensure that everyone who is registered to vote gets to cast a ballot,” says Charles Stewart III, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Lab in Boston.

    The ballots, which are sometimes known as “challenge” or “affidavit” ballots, are currently offered in all but three states — Idaho, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Those states, however, offer same-day registration, which allows residents to both register to vote and cast a ballot on Election Day.

    Each state sets its own guidelines for when provisional ballots are required and how they’re processed.

    The most common reasons they’re offered include when an election official challenges a voter’s eligibility or when a voter’s name isn’t found on the list of eligible voters, they lack proper identification or do not reside in the precinct in which they’re attempting to vote, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which publishes a nationwide analysis following every general election.

    Provisional ballots are set aside for review after polls close on Election Day, but the delay in counting them has led to confusion and allegations of voter fraud in recent elections.

    Former President Donald Trump and other election skeptics, for example, questioned why vote counts in some states continued to grow long after polls closed in 2020.

    Some have also suggested that being required to fill out a provisional ballot means someone else has already fraudulently voted in your place and that your vote won’t ultimately be counted.

    But all provisional ballots are reviewed by election officials in every election, says the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan research group that serves lawmakers across the country. If a ballot is deemed legitimate, it will be counted, regardless of how wide the margin of victory in an election might be, the organization said.

    Election officials are also required to inform voters whether their provisional ballot was counted and the reason if it’s rejected. This is usually in the form of a toll-free telephone number or an online tool.

    As provisional ballots are verified, they’re added to the final tally, Stewart said.

    “If all you do is compare the vote totals from election night to the totals with the provisional ballots added, it might look like someone has been stuffing the ballot box,” he said in an email. “Instead, people who voted on Election Day are simply having their vote counted after Election Day.”

    Provisional ballots represent an increasingly small share of all votes cast, comprising less than 1% of all votes in 2020, down from 1.4% in 2016 and 1.7% in 2012, the two most recent presidential elections, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s most recent analysis.

    Overall, roughly 1.7 million provisional ballots were cast nationwide in 2020, of which about 78% were ultimately counted and about 21% were rejected, the commission found.

    ___

    The AP is answering your questions about elections in this series. Submit them at: FactCheck@AP.org.

    What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

    How do states ensure dead people’s ballots aren’t counted?

    Can noncitizens vote in U.S. elections?

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  • Mishaps, distrust spur Election Day misinformation

    Mishaps, distrust spur Election Day misinformation

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    Voters casting ballots in Tuesday’s pivotal midterms grappled with misleading claims about glitchy election machines and delayed results, the final crest of a wave of misinformation that’s expected to linger long after the last votes are tallied.

    In Arizona, news of snags with vote tabulators spawned baseless claims about vote rigging, which quickly jumped from fringe sites popular with the far-right to mainstream platforms. It didn’t matter that local officials were quick to report the problem and debunk the theory.

    In Pennsylvania, election officials pushed back on baseless claims that delays in counting the vote equate to election fraud. But the conspiracy theory spread anyway, thanks in part to former President Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and other prominent Republicans who have amplified the idea.

    There was lots of other misinformation too: false claims about ballots cast by non-citizens or pre-filled registration forms; hoaxes about voting machines and tales of suspicious Wi-Fi networks at election offices. In some cases, the false claims provoked responses including calls for violence against local officials.

    The states and facts involved were all different, but most of the misinformation aimed at voters this year had the same drumbeat: American elections can no longer be trusted.

    “People were looking for things to go wrong to prove their preconceived notions that the election was rigged,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan organization that tracks misinformation. ”And there are always things that go wrong.”

    If 2020 is any guide, many of the claims the emerged Tuesday will persist for days, weeks and even years, despite efforts by election officials, journalists and others to debunk them.

    There was a sharp uptick in social media posts Monday and Tuesday claiming Democrats would use delays in vote tallying to rig elections throughout the country, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a firm that tracks disinformation.

    Some of the posts originated on websites popular with Trump supporters and adherents of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory.

    The increased popularity of mail ballots is one reason why results can take a while. In key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, election officials cannot begin counting mail ballots until Election Day, guaranteeing delays.

    “We have never certified an election on election night,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a non-profit group that has been tracking election misinformation. “This is nothing new. It’s just people trying to undermine faith in elections.”

    Misinformation about voting and elections has been blamed for a widening political divide, decreased trust in democracy and an increased threat of political violence like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    The same false claims fueled the campaigns of candidates who reject the outcome of the 2020 election, including Republican gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Several GOP nominees for secretary of state positions overseeing elections have also said they supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and remain in power.

    Though not on the ballot, Trump helped spread many of the leading false claims on Tuesday. Using his TruthSocial platform, he amplified the conspiracy theories from Pennsylvania and Arizona. “Another big voter tabulation problem in Arizona,” he wrote. “Sound familiar???”

    The false claims seen in 2022 are likely to stick around and become part of the misinformation facing voters in the presidential election, said Morgan Wack, a University of Washington disinformation researcher and part of the Election Integrity Partnership, a collaborative research group focused on election misinformation.

    “We will almost certainly see this again in 2024,” Wack said.

    Most major social media platforms announced plans to combat election misinformation and provide voting resources to users. It was a different story on fringe platforms like Gab, where misinformation and even threats of violence were easy to spot Tuesday.

    Twitter was of particular concern to disinformation researchers given its new owner, Elon Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist who has spread misinformation himself.

    One analysis of bots and fake accounts on Twitter found a significant increase in discussion of election fraud in the week before the election. The number of automated or fake accounts posting about “stolen elections” doubled in the sample reviewed by researchers at Cyabra, an Israeli tech firm.

    Officials with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Tuesday they were monitoring for foreign attempts to sow doubt about the election but saw no evidence the efforts were paying off.

    Russia, China and Iran have all mounted disinformation operations targeting U.S. politics and will likely increase their efforts ahead of 2024, according to Craig Terron, director of global issues at Insikt Group, a division of the Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

    Terron said the Kremlin likely sees such meddling as justified, given U.S. support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.

    “Immediately after the US midterm elections, and into 2023 and beyond, the Russian government will very likely attempt to plan and execute malign influence efforts,” Terron wrote in an email to the AP. “In particular, we expect to see campaigns aimed at undermining the next two years of President Biden’s term.”

    ___

    AP writer Haleluya Hadero in New York contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of misinformation at https://apnews.com/hub/misinformation. Follow the AP for full coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Arizona officials correct false claims about ballot issues

    CLAIM: When ballots were rejected by tabulators at some voting locations across Maricopa County on Election Day, an alternate solution for voters to drop ballots in a secure drop box onsite resulted in the ballots getting shredded, thrown in the trash, or marked for Democrats.

    THE FACTS: Ballots submitted in this way were counted just as absentee ballots or mail-in ballots are, according to county officials. They weren’t discarded or altered. When a printing problem caused tabulators to reject ballots in at least 70 of 223 polling sites in Arizona’s largest county on Tuesday, county officials offered a few alternate solutions. Voters could wait and try another machine, cancel their vote and go to another vote center, or drop their ballot in a secure drop box referred to as “door 3” or “box 3.” Some social media user falsely claimed that using this drop box would allow county officials to rig those votes by manually changing them or discarding them. However, county elections department spokesperson Megan Gilbertson explained that ballots placed in these drop boxes were machine-counted at the central tabulation center in downtown Phoenix, just as all mail-in and absentee ballots are. At the end of the voting day, a bipartisan team collected all the voted ballots from voting centers, sealed them and transported them by truck to the tabulation center for counting. This is the same process used for early voting and is the same methodology used on Election Day by most counties, including Pima County and Yavapai County, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said in a statement Tuesday.

    — Associated Press writers Josh Kelety in Phoenix and Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Clip shows poll worker in Wisconsin, not ‘cheating’ in Philadelphia

    CLAIM: Video shows masked man at polling site “cheating” in front of cameras in Philadelphia.

    THE FACTS: The video shows a poll worker in Madison, Wisconsin, on Tuesday. He was initialing ballots to be handed out to voters, a standard procedure mandated by state law, according to the county clerk. Social media users on Election Day distorted a clip of the Madison poll worker doing his job to falsely claim it showed election fraud in Philadelphia. The video, which aired on Fox News on Tuesday, shows a man wearing a cloth face mask flipping through ballots and writing on them. “Masked man cheating in front of the cameras on the mainstream media,” read a widely shared tweet with the video. But the original footage shows the video was filmed in Madison, not Pennsylvania. Immediately before Fox News showed the clip in Madison, the network showed the exterior of Philadelphia’s East Passyunk Community Center with a graphic labeling that location. The broadcast then showed the clip of the poll worker and changed the location in the label to Madison. Social media versions of the video cropped out the location. A reverse-image search of the building’s interior revealed that the clip was filmed at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, which served as a polling location for Tuesday’s election. Scott McDonell, the Dane County clerk, said the man is a poll worker, and the video shows him initialing ballots before they were handed out to voters. He was also circling the ward in which the ballots were issued. It’s part of the process of preparing the ballots for voters, McDonell said. Another poll worker also initialed the ballots before they were handed to voters. “You need to have those signatures to show that two people saw the blank ballot and handed it to the voter,” McDonell said. “This is a standard operating procedure. It’s done in public so that anyone can watch it. It’s mandated by state law. It’s a check and balance on the system.” Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and the director of the Elections Research Project, agreed that the video showed standard procedures for poll workers in Madison. Wisconsin election law explains that at polling places with paper ballots, two inspectors “shall write their initials on the back of each ballot and deliver to each elector as he or she enters the voting booth.” Philadelphia’s city commissioner on Twitter debunked the false claims that the video showed a polling site in his city. Nick Custodio, deputy commissioner with Philadelphia’s elections board, told the AP that Philadelphia does not use paper voting booths such as those shown in the video, and that the “I voted” stickers in the video also do not match those used in Philadelphia.

    — Associated Press writers Arijeta Lajka and Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report with additional reporting from Amy Forliti in Minneapolis and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia.

    ___

    No voters turned away over Detroit absentee ballot glitch

    CLAIM: Voters in Detroit were prevented from casting ballots on Election Day after officials mistakenly said they’d already voted by absentee ballot.

    THE FACTS: No eligible voters were prevented from casting a ballot at Detroit polling locations that experienced the data glitch on Tuesday morning, state and city officials confirmed. As voters nationwide went to the polls, there was heightened focus on voting problems and irregularities. One of the places election watchers sounded the alarm early on was the battleground state of Michigan. “People are showing up to vote in Detroit only to be told that they already voted via absentee ballots and are being turned away,” wrote one Twitter user. “Citizens are being told they voted already absentee,” wrote Kristina Karamo, a Republican candidate for Michigan secretary of state, in widely shared posts on Twitter and Facebook. Former President Donald Trump also amplified the claims on Truth Social. But state and city officials said the issue stemmed from an election software problem and was quickly resolved without anyone being disenfranchised. Corwin Smidt, a political science professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing, said the situation demonstrated the voting system worked properly. “It certainly slowed down voting there, but the reasons for the slowdown were that the system caught an error, and that error was then fixed,” he wrote in an email. Liette Gidlow, a history professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who focuses on U.S. politics and voting rights, agreed. “Minor technical glitches are not unusual in any precinct because administering elections is a complex business,” she wrote in an email. Detroit’s elections department said the problem was caused by computer software used by election workers to check in voters as they entered the polling location. The agency said the program wrongly flagged some residents as having requested an absentee ballot, which would make them ineligible to cast a ballot in-person. Matthew Friedman, a department spokesperson, said the issue was resolved within an hour and all eligible residents were able to vote. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, whose office assisted the city in addressing the issue, also stressed that no voters were disenfranchised. “In all circumstances, eligible voters were able to vote,” the office said in a statement. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which observed the voting process, said it spoke with multiple city election officials and was satisfied with the response. Spokespersons for Trump and Karamo did not respond to messages seeking comment.

    — Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    CLAIM: A Pennsylvania judge ruled that ballots received up until Nov. 14 will count in the 2022 midterm elections.

    THE FACTS: Pennsylvania ballots, including mail-in and absentee ballots, must be received by county election offices by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 8, to be counted, according to the state’s Department of State. As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, misleading information about Pennsylvania’s vote-counting deadlines gained traction. “This just in: Pennsylvania Judge allows ballots to count that are received up until November 14th,” read one post. “This is unconstitutional.” The message, shared in several Instagram posts, is a screenshot of a tweet that was later deleted. The Twitter user who first posted it acknowledged in a follow-up that the information was incorrect. Existing law requires that Pennsylvania voters’ ballots be received by county election workers by Nov. 8, the Department of State explains. Unlike some other states, Pennsylvania allots no extra time for mail-in ballots — what counts is the day the ballot actually made it to election officials, not when the ballot was postmarked. The Twitter user who first made the claim said in a follow-up post that the court case he was referring to was a recent decision by a Pennsylvania Common Pleas Court. However, the case in question has nothing to do with ballot submission deadlines. It concerned the cross-checking procedure that Pennsylvania uses to prevent duplicate votes from being counted, according to Kevin Feeley, spokesperson for the Philadelphia City Commissioners, which oversees elections in the city. The city had sought to delay that process until after the initial ballot count, in an effort to get ballots counted more quickly. He said that no duplicate votes had been found in the last three elections. The court granted the city the right to delay the reconciliation process, but the judge in the case was “highly critical” of the idea, Feeley said. So the City Commission opted Tuesday to revert to doing reconciliation as usual. Feeley confirmed that the case did not mean voting can occur through Nov. 14.

    — Associated Press writer Graph Massara in San Francisco contributed this report with additional reporting from Melissa Goldin in New York.

    ___

    Large numbers of mailed ballots not evidence of election fraud

    CLAIM: A candidate winning an election with a majority of mailed ballots is proof of fraud.

    THE FACTS: There is no evidence that mail-in voting has historically caused widespread voter fraud, and fraud related to mail-in voting is exceedingly rare, the AP has reported. Some on social media have posited that if a candidate who receives a significant chunk of their votes through mail-in voting wins, their victory is inherently fraudulent. An Instagram post features results reporting that incumbent Kelly Skidmore, a Democrat, beat Dorcas Hernandez, a Republican, in the race for state representative in Florida’s 92nd House District. It shows Skidmore with 57.51% of the vote, including 31,405 mailed ballots, and Hernandez with 42.9% and 10,297 mailed ballots. “This is what textbook election theft via vote by mail ballot looks like,” the post states. The numbers in the Instagram post are from the state’s unofficial results, as published online by county boards of elections. However, the fact that some candidates are reported as having won after receiving a majority of mailed ballots does not prove election fraud. Claims that mail-in voting has caused widespread voter fraud in the past are unsubstantiated, according to reporting by the AP. After reviewing every potential case of voter fraud in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the AP found far too few to affect the outcome of the 2020 election. Additionally, an AP survey of state election officials across the U.S. found that the expanded use of drop boxes during the 2020 race did not lead to cases of fraud that could have impacted the results. Different states have different ballot verification protocols, but all states vet mailed and absentee ballots. Every state requires voters to sign their ballots. Some have additional precautions, like having bipartisan teams compare the signature on the ballot with one on file, requiring the signature on the ballot to be notarized or requiring a witness to sign the ballot. Other forms of verification can include requiring proof of voter registration, a copy of an ID, a driver’s license number or a Social Security number. Ballot security features and ballot sorting at election offices would help weed out any counterfeits. There are harsh penalties for voter fraud by mailed ballot, such as a fine, prison time or both.

    — Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin and Ali Swenson in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

    ___

    Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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  • FACT FOCUS: Did late night Michigan voting lines show fraud?

    FACT FOCUS: Did late night Michigan voting lines show fraud?

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    Michigan saw record turnout for a midterm election this week, with control of the governor’s office and referendums on abortion and voting rights in the balance.

    But with a heightened focus on voting problems and irregularities nationwide, Ann Arbor became a target for false information following reports of long lines of voters waiting to cast ballots late into the night Tuesday in the college community.

    Elections officials, government watchdog groups and other experts, however, said the election process was carried out according to state law.

    Here are the facts.

    CLAIM: City officials in Ann Arbor were registering new voters and allowing them to vote long after the polls closed on Election Day.

    THE FACTS: The false claim gained traction after a Republican candidate for Michigan secretary of state issued a lengthy statement on social media singling out the vote in Ann Arbor — a liberal bastion that’s home to the University of Michigan — as proof of election malfeasance.

    “We will not tolerate the lawlessness of the Ann Arbor city clerk,” Kristina Karamo wrote in her Election Day tweet, which has since been liked or shared more than 1,200 times.

    The Trump-endorsed Republican, who ended up losing to incumbent Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, doubled down on her claims Thursday in a tweet that was also widely shared.

    “The Ann Arbor clerk is engaging in mass Election Crimes. Illegally registering people after 8pm,” another Twitter user wrote, echoing the false claim. “They are arrogantly breaking the law.”

    But Michigan state law allows any person in line when polls close at 8 p.m. to register to vote and to cast a ballot, election officials and experts told The Associated Press this week.

    “Although we say the polls are open until 8pm in MI, if you are in line before 8pm and stay in line you can vote,” Sharon Dolente, a senior advisor for Promote the Vote, wrote in an email. “The same is true if you need to register to vote first, in order to vote.”

    Promote the Vote, a coalition that includes the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union, coordinated an Election Day hotline and had hundreds of observers at polling locations throughout the state on Tuesday.

    Dale Thomson, a political science professor at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, agreed, noting that Michigan voters in 2018 approved same-day registration, meaning voters can enroll up to and including on Election Day.

    The Michigan Department of State, which oversees elections statewide, confirmed with Ann Arbor officials that all voters registered after 8 p.m. had been in line before polls closed and that each person was provided a document to verify that, said Jake Rollow, an agency spokesperson.

    “Eligible American citizens have the constitutional right to register to vote and vote, and if they are in line at the 8 p.m. deadline on Election Day, they must be allowed to do so,” he wrote in an email.

    Joanna Satterlee, a spokesperson for the city of Ann Arbor, said the waiting voters were handed a “ticket” in the form of a blank application to vote.

    Only those in line holding the application were permitted to register and vote, she said. Staff were also present to ensure no one joined the lines after 8 p.m.

    Satterlee said the city didn’t have a count for how many votes were cast by those waiting in line past 8 p.m. on Tuesday, but that the last ballot was issued shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday.

    She said the three voting locations impacted were City Hall and two sites on the University of Michigan campus, where hundreds of waiting voters were seen wrapped up in donated blankets and sipping on hot cocoa as temperatures dropped below 45 degrees.

    The U.S. Department of Justice, which posted election monitors in other Michigan cities, declined to comment, and Karamo’s campaign didn’t respond to messages this week.

    But the secretary of state’s office said it will work with city officials, university administrators and student leaders in Ann Arbor and other college communities to “identify and implement practices to prevent such situations” going forward.

    Michigan State University on Friday said it experienced similarly long voting lines, with the last ballot cast on its East Lansing campus at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday.

    “Unfortunately, long lines in some locations, most often university towns, have been a challenge in Michigan for years,” said Dolente. “This was true before same day registration was adopted. Promote the Vote looks forward to working with election officials to prevent it from happening in the future.”

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Graphic misrepresents House GOP agenda

    CLAIM: An image shows the House Republicans’ “Commitment to America” plan, including raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 75 and making retirees with pensions, 401(k)s or disabled veterans’ benefits ineligible for Social Security payments.

    THE FACTS: The image shows policies that don’t match the language in House Republicans’ actual plan. Ahead of the midterm elections, social media users are sharing the misleading graphic that claims to outline House Republicans’ policy plan. The image shows a logo reading “Commitment to America” that matches branding on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s website for the House GOP’s 2022 agenda. “Entitlements are bankrupting our country and the future of our children,” reads the image. “Republicans are the only Party with a plan to address our fiscal crisis and commit to the following if you give us the majority in November.” The image goes on to list several policies: making retirees “who have pension, IRAs, 401Ks, disabled veteran benefits” ineligible for Social Security; raising the age of Medicare eligibility to 75; and taxing “disabled veterans benefits” and employer-sponsored health care plans. One tweet sharing the image gained more than 3,000 likes. But the graphic’s contents do not match the policies and goals outlined in the Commitment to America agenda. Mark Bednar, McCarthy’s director of strategic communications, told the AP that the graphic is “fabricated” and contains “false information.” A summary of the plan contains only one mention of Social Security or Medicare, saying it would “save and strengthen” the programs. A document outlining the plan’s fiscal proposals says “Congress must be prepared to make reforms to extend the solvency of the entitlement programs,” but does not contain explicit references to cutting particular programs. Neither the summary nor individual policy documents on McCarthy’s website explicitly recommend taxing veterans’ disability benefits or employer-sponsored health care plans. Congressional Republicans have previously proposed raising the Medicare eligibility age. A fiscal 2023 budget proposal from the Republican Study Committee suggests adjusting the Medicare eligibility age to reflect increased average life expectancy, though it does not offer a specific age. That committee’s prior proposal, for fiscal 2022, suggested gradually increasing the eligibility age to 70. Buckley Carlson, a spokesperson for the Republican Study Committee, confirmed the statements in the graphic are inaccurate. Republican Rep. Jim Banks, who chairs the committee, also tweeted about the image, calling it a “fake graphic.”

    — Associated Press writers Karena Phan in Los Angeles and Graph Massara in San Francisco contributed this report.

    ___

    USPS won’t reject mail-in ballots for too few stamps

    CLAIM: Absentee ballots will not be accepted unless voters mail them with up to two stamps.

    THE FACTS: Some states and counties do require voters to pay for their own postage on mail-in ballots, however, the United States Postal Service says its policy is to deliver all ballots, even those with insufficient postage. As the midterm election approaches, some social media users have warned that those planning to vote by mail need a specific amount of postage to send their ballots or they won’t be counted. “OHIO USE 2 STAMPS ON YOUR BALLOT OR THEY WONT COUNT THEY WILL BE RETURNED FOR UNPAID POSTAGE,” read one tweet posted Wednesday. Another tweet with a similar warning was shared more than 2,000 times. While some states provide pre-paid ballot envelopes, many states do require voters to provide their own postage for returning mail-in ballots. However, USPS doesn’t reject or delay delivery of ballots if the postage is insufficient or unpaid, USPS spokesperson Martha Johnson confirmed. For mail-in ballots that need postage, USPS requires election officials to inform voters of the amount. “We are proactively working with state and local election officials on mailing requirements, including postage payment,” Johnson wrote in an email to the AP. In cases where a post office receives a ballot with insufficient postage, USPS will still deliver it and attempt to collect postage from the appropriate local election officials, Johnson added. The USPS also released an election mail guide in January 2022 that confirms that policy. “Postage is collected from the election office upon delivery or at a later date,” the policy says, referring to unpaid ballots or those with insufficient postage. The amount of postage can vary by jurisdiction. In Ohio, for example, if a person returns an absentee ballot by mail it must be postmarked no later than the day before Election Day, and it is the voter’s responsibility the ballot has enough postage, according to the Ohio Secretary of State’s website. The Lucas County, Ohio, Board of Elections said in a statement posted to Twitter that not every ballot in Ohio needs more than one stamp, and requirements vary depending on how many pages each ballot is. “In addition the post office will deliver it to the board of elections regardless of postage,” the tweet added. The elections administration office in Harris County, Texas — which similarly requires two stamps per ballot — has also been posting reminders about postage. “Our mail ballot office worked with USPS to weigh and determine the amount of postage for this ballot, as it is four sheets of paper long,” Nadia Hakim, a spokesperson for the Harris County elections administration office, told the AP. “USPS determined that the amount of postage needed is $1.08, so we have been telling voters two forever stamps are needed to send their ballot back.” Hakim also confirmed the USPS policy on ballot delivery and postage.

    — Karena Phan

    ___

    Colorado’s universal mail-in ballot system is legal, secure

    CLAIM: Colorado’s practice of sending mail-in ballots to every registered voter is unconstitutional and voters should only vote in person on Election Day.

    THE FACTS: Colorado state law explicitly protects mail-in voting and the U.S. Constitution gives states broad authority to run their elections, according to legal experts. With the midterm elections just weeks away, some social media users are sharing misleading information about Colorado’s mail-in voting system. One Instagram user posted a picture of a ballot that features the label of the Douglas County clerk and recorder and wrote, “So when you get this…mailed unconstitutionally to every Colorado voter whether they requested one or not, ignore the instructions to vote early. Vote in person, on Election Day.” But there’s nothing unconstitutional about the process. In 2013, Colorado adopted legislation requiring that mail-in ballots be sent to all eligible voters. And the Constitution gives state legislatures control over election administration, though Congress can amend regulations for federal elections, experts say. “There’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that speaks to mail-in balloting. And therefore there’s nothing that prohibits the practice,” said Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Doug Spencer, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder, agreed that Colorado’s mail-in voting system is “not actually unconstitutional” under the law. Annie Orloff, a spokesperson for the Colorado secretary of state, wrote in an email to the AP that there has “never been a legitimate or successful lawsuit challenging the constitutionality” of the state’s mail-in voting law. Local and national experts and election judges agree that Colorado’s mail-in voting system is safe, the AP has reported. Bipartisan teams transport, verify, open, sort, count and store Colorado’s ballots in secure rooms with windows through which anyone can watch. Election judges and computers check each vote and signature against state registries before the ballots are tabulated and stashed by the hundreds in cardboard boxes, numbered and dated.

    — Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.

    ___

    Officials: No fentanyl found in California cereal boxes

    CLAIM: A photo shows cereal boxes filled with fentanyl that were recently seized by law enforcement officials in San Bernardino County, California.

    THE FACTS: The county sheriff’s department said the photo, from a drug bust earlier this year, shows pills suspected of being MDMA, not fentanyl. With Halloween around the corner, social media users have been sharing warnings about the possibility of potentially deadly drugs showing up in otherwise innocuous children’s treats. The latest warning includes a photo of two cereal boxes — one Lucky Charms, the other Trix — and their contents. The widely-circulating image purportedly shows pink-colored pills mixed in with the colorful cereal pieces. “This was seized in San Bernardino County today. It’s Fentanyl mixed with cereal,” wrote one Instagram user in a post that was shared more than 25,000 times before being taken down. “PLEASE SHARE AS HALLOWEEN GETS CLOSER SAVE A LIFE!!!!,” wrote another Instagram user. However, the photograph doesn’t show fentanyl in the cereal, but likely another less lethal recreational drug: MDMA, often referred to as ecstasy or Molly, according to Mara Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. She added that lab tests have not yet been completed on the substance. The photo comes from a joint investigation this summer by the sheriff’s office and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that involved drugs being distributed through the mail, Rodriguez said. The agency stressed the incident doesn’t raise broader concerns about illegal drugs infiltrating the nation’s food supply. “This is an isolated incident with individual packages, not a mass-produced or commercial/retail distribution system,” the sheriff’s department said in an emailed statement. The use of cereal to conceal the drugs is most likely a smuggling technique, “not a sinister attempt” to market illegal drugs to a younger demographic, says Ryan Marino, an addiction medicine specialist at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio. “The drug trade is a business and nobody is giving away expensive products for free,” he said. “It wouldn’t make any logical sense.” The claims come shortly after California authorities seized 12,000 suspected fentanyl pills hidden in candy boxes at Los Angeles International Airport last week. The county sheriff’s department said the suspected trafficker tried to go through security screening with packages of Sweet Tarts, Skittles and Whoppers filled with the drug. The DEA also warned the public in an Aug. 30 news release about the increased presence of candy-colored “rainbow fentanyl,” which it billed as a tactic by drug cartels to sell the highly addictive and potentially deadly opioids to younger users. Still, as trick-or-treat season approaches, the DEA says its so far found “no indication there is a connection” between fentanyl and Halloween, said Nicole Nishida, a DEA spokesperson in the Los Angeles field office. “Traditionally, drug traffickers use different concealment methods to try and evade law enforcement detection,” she wrote in an email. “We have seen fentanyl pills and other drugs hidden in fire extinguishers, fish tanks, candy boxes, everyday household items, pallets, and even concrete blocks.”

    — Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo in New York contributed this report.

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    Death of red panda cub in Toronto not linked to COVID vaccine

    CLAIM: The recent death of a red panda cub at Canada’s Toronto Zoo was related to the COVID-19 vaccine.

    THE FACTS: The cub that died was not vaccinated against COVID-19. The Toronto zoo on Monday announced the death of the 3-month-old red panda cub, referred to as “Baby Spice” but recently dubbed Dash following a naming contest. Soon after, erroneous suggestions emerged on social media linking the death to the COVID-19 vaccine. “They killed the red panda,” reads a tweet that received more than 5,000 likes. The tweet included screenshots of two headlines: On the left, a headline from April reported that the zoo had received COVID-19 vaccines for its animals. On the right was a headline about the panda cub’s death. But there is no connection between the two, a spokesperson for the zoo told the AP. “Dash did not receive the Covid vaccine,” Amy Naylor said in an email. “A post-mortem was conducted to collect samples for additional testing which will be required to better understand the possible cause of the rapid decline of this animal. Until the results are available to us, we are unable to definitively state the cause of death.” The zoo also posted a statement responding to the false claim on Twitter. Dash showed no signs of illness on Oct. 22 but by the morning of Oct. 23 was lying on his side and weak, the zoo said. Attempts to treat him were unsuccessful. Red pandas are difficult to breed, the zoo added. Many pregnancies are lost and the zoo estimated that approximately 40% of cubs die within one year.

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report.

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  • What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

    What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

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    What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

    Election workers reconstruct or “duplicate” ballots that are damaged or improperly marked to preserve voters’ intent. This is necessary if a ballot has, say, a coffee stain or tear — or if a voter circled a candidate rather than filled in a bubble to make their selection — and therefore can’t be read by a machine.

    While the process might sound strange to those not familiar with election administration, it’s a legitimate and longstanding way to ensure voters have their votes counted, according to experts. It’s also widely used to translate votes cast by those overseas or in the military onto ballots that can be scanned.

    The ballot duplication process involves transcribing a voter’s choices from the damaged ballot onto a new, clean ballot that can be scanned and counted. How exactly that process is handled varies across states.

    In many cases, it’s done by bipartisan teams of poll workers, said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. That’s not the case everywhere, though it’s common that it’s performed by at least two people — even two staff members — said Jennifer Morrell, a partner at The Elections Group, which works with election officials to improve processes.

    Many key states in the midterm elections this year — such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin — call for the ballot duplication process to be done by individuals representing different political parties.

    There are some cases in which mistakes on a ballot can’t simply be corrected because it’s impossible to confirm the voter’s intent. For example, sometimes a voter makes too many selections in a particular contest, or leaves a stray mark that doesn’t clearly indicate their chosen candidate.

    The rules for such ballots depend on jurisdiction. In some places, a ballot with a mistake in one race would simply exclude that race, but in other places, none of the voter’s choices would be counted, Burden said in an email. He added that whether the original ballot is destroyed or retained depends on the state.

    Experts say the ballot duplication process is generally done in view of the public or poll watchers. Many states also require that the original and ballot duplicates be labeled and assigned corresponding numbers, creating a paper trail between the two.

    Distortions about the ballot duplication process have fueled false claims.

    In 2020, footage from a publicly available video stream showed Delaware County, Pennsylvania, election workers transcribing votes from damaged ballots to clean ballots for scanning. But social media posts shared cropped footage, which didn’t show the bipartisan observers present, and baselessly alleged the video was proof of voter fraud.

    “Ballot duplication is a standard part of the election administration process and has been for many years,” Burden said. “It is essential for many people who vote by mail whose ballots are not readable by machines, including many overseas and military voters who cast ballots by different means that must be copied onto standard paper ballots.”

    If a voter makes a mistake or their ballot is damaged before they turn it in, they can also follow the instructions provided by local officials to request a new one, said Tammy Patrick, a senior advisor for the elections program at the nonpartisan Democracy Fund. The original ballot will be nullified and only one will count.

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    Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections. And follow the AP’s coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

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    The AP is answering your questions about elections in this series. Submit them at FactCheck@AP.org.

    Am I allowed to drop off a ballot for someone else?

    How are mail-in and absentee ballots verified?

    How do states ensure dead people’s ballots aren’t counted?

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

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    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

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    Russian strikes in Kyiv didn’t destroy Zelenskyy’s office

    CLAIM: Ukrainian media is reporting that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office was destroyed by a missile strike.

    THE FACTS: The building wasn’t destroyed and the claim wasn’t reported by mainstream Ukrainian news outlets. Twitter accounts supporting Russia shared the baseless assertion that Zelenskyy’s office was among the buildings struck by a barrage of missile strikes in Ukraine’s capital on Monday. “ZELENSKY’S OFFICE WAS DESTROYED BY A MISSILE STRIKE: UKRAINIAN MEDIA,” wrote one Russian-aligned account, receiving more than 2,000 shares and 6,500 likes. The user reposted a video from a separate account called UkraineNews, which gives updates on the war. Though identified as “Ukrainian media,” UkraineNews often makes posts in support of Russia. The account shared a video on Monday of smoke rising over the skyline, suggesting in the caption that Zelesnkyy’s office may have been the target while stating the report was “unconfirmed.” But AP reporting and other images of the site show the government building where Zelenskyy works was not destroyed. AP journalists on the ground in Kyiv confirmed the building was not hit. Satellite images taken by Planet Labs Inc. and obtained by the AP capture an aerial view of the building on Monday that shows the structure still standing. Statements from the Office of the President of Ukraine on Monday and Tuesday made no mention of any strikes to its building, instead specifying that “civilian infrastructure” was targeted. Zelenskyy on Monday also filmed a video address outside of the Presidential Administration Building. The video captured much of the building’s exterior and courtyard, and no damage can be seen. In Kyiv, blasts struck in the Shevchenko district, which includes the historic old town and government offices, both Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and Zelenskyy said. While some of the strikes hit near the government quarter, where parliament and other major landmarks are located, neither official gave any indication that those government buildings were hit. AP images of the damage show a crater in the ground and debris strewn about a playground at Taras Shevchenko Park, near the city center. Outside of Kyiv, strikes in 12 other regions Monday caused power outages and killed at least 19 people. Russia launched the widespread attacks in retaliation for an explosion last weekend that damaged a bridge linking the country to the Crimean Peninsula.

    — Associated Press writer Sophia Tulp in New York contributed this report.

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    Hoax tweet spreads false claim of Pelosi buying cannabis stocks

    CLAIM: Reuters reported that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently purchased 10 million shares in a cannabis company.

    THE FACTS: Reuters never published such a report, and financial disclosures show no record of Pelosi making such a stock purchase. After President Joe Biden announced on Oct. 6 that he is pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law, social media users shared a hoax tweet suggesting Pelosi stood to profit from the move. The posts featured screenshots of the tweet, which was made to look like it came from a popular Twitter account, Breaking911. However, the tweet was actually posted by an account with a different username. “BREAKING: NANCY PELOSI PURCHASED 10,000,000 SHARES OF $WEED 4 DAYS AGO :REUTERS,” read the tweet in the screenshot. A second tweet noted that shares of Canopy Growth Corporation, which trades under WEED on the Toronto Stock Exchange, were up on Oct. 6. But Reuters never published this claim, and there is no evidence to suggest Pelosi has recently bought shares of Canopy Growth Corporation, nor the Roundhill Cannabis exchange-traded fund, which trades under WEED on the New York Stock Exchange. Heather Carpenter, a spokesperson for Reuters, confirmed in an email to the AP that the news agency did not publish the claim. “This is not a Reuters story,” Carpenter wrote. Online records of Pelosi’s financial disclosures show no such purchase by the congresswoman or her family filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, although lawmakers have 45 days to report trades under a 2012 law called the Stock Act. A spokesperson for Pelosi’s office said the claim in the tweet was not true. “No such transaction has been made,” Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, told the AP in an email. Pelosi has said she does not trade stocks herself. However, her husband, Paul Pelosi, is an investment banker who has traded tens of millions of dollars worth of stocks and options. Critics have argued that members of Congress and their families should not be allowed to trade individual stocks at all, because they may have the opportunity to profit off insider information gained through their official duties.

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    Posts mischaracterize Home Depot political donations

    CLAIM: Home Depot recently donated $1.75 million to Hershel Walker’s U.S. Senate campaign.

    THE FACTS: Bernard “Bernie” Marcus, a Home Depot co-founder who left the company in 2002, made contributions totaling $1.75 million to a political action committee supporting Walker, not The Home Depot. Social media users this week conflated donations made by the former Home Depot executive with the political spending history of the company itself, amid the pivotal race for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia. Walker, a political newcomer and former University of Georgia football star, is looking to flip the seat held by his Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, as Republicans try to take control of the Senate during the upcoming midterm elections. Commenting on the race on Monday, one Twitter user called for people to boycott Home Depot. “Home Depot just backed Hershel Walker with $1.75 million. Please shop at Lowe’s,” the user wrote. The claim surfaced on Oct. 7 when another user tweeted: “Will you join me in boycotting Home Depot for donating $1.75 MILLION to Herschel Walker’s campaign?” That post prompted a denial from the company. “The company has not contributed to this campaign,” Home Depot’s account responded. “The contribution was from our co-founder Bernie Marcus, who left The Home Depot more than 20 years ago.” Federal Election Commission data confirms that neither The Home Depot, nor its PAC, The Home Depot PAC, have donated directly to Walker’s campaign or related PACs set up to exclusively support his campaign. Instead, FEC records show two donations equaling $1.75 million made by Marcus, whose employer is listed as The Marcus Foundation, to a PAC dedicated to supporting Walker. One donation for $1 million was made by Marcus to 34N22 PAC on March 21, 2022, and another donation of $750,000 was made to the same PAC on Nov. 8, 2021, according to the database. Marcus co-founded Home Depot in 1978 and served as chairman of the board until his retirement in 2002. “His views do not represent the company,” spokesperson Sara Gorman wrote in a statement, adding that, “The Home Depot PAC hasn’t donated to Walker’s or Warnock’s campaigns.” FEC data for the 2021-2022 election cycle shows the PAC has donated to a number of campaigns and PACs on both sides of the aisle. A search of such records shows The Home Depot PAC donated a combined $90,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 2021-2022. The NRSC works to elect Republicans to the Senate. It has used funds to launch advertisements in Georgia against Walker’s opponent, Warnock. It also donated $30,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to the FEC database.

    — Sophia Tulp

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    Stacey Abrams did not lobby against major Atlanta events

    CLAIM: Stacey Abrams lobbied for moving Major League Baseball’s 2021 All-Star Game and Atlanta’s 2022 Music Midtown festival out of Georgia.

    THE FACTS: Abrams, the Democratic candidate in Georgia’s gubernatorial race, did not advocate for either event to be moved out of state. As Georgia’s gubernatorial race heats up in its final month, the false claims have re-emerged on social media, suggesting she advocated for the moves in response to voting and gun legislation backed by Republicans. “Never forget. Stacey Abrams lobbied to move the Allstars game and Music Midtown. She cost Georgia 150 million plus. Not Kemp,” multiple posts on Facebook stated. Abrams, who is running against Republican incumbent Brian Kemp, has fought against the legislation in question. However, a review of Abrams’ public comments shows she did not lobby for moving either of these events out of Georgia, and in fact spoke out against both moves. MLB pulled its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta in April last year over the league’s objections to changes to Georgia’s voting laws, which included new restrictions on voting by mail and greater legislative control over election administration, the AP reported. Prior to MLB’s decision, Abrams urged against boycotts of Georgia in a video on Twitter. “To our friends across the country, please do not boycott us,” she said. In a statement posted to her Twitter account the same day MLB made its announcement about the All-Star Game, Abrams wrote: “Like many Georgians, I am disappointed that the MLB is relocating the All-Star game,” adding, “As I have stated, I respect boycotts, although I don’t want to see Georgia families hurt by lost events and jobs.” Asked in a subsequent AP interview whether she supports corporate boycotts such as the All-Star Game move, Abrams responded: “I do not believe that a boycott at this moment is beneficial to the victims of these bills.” In August 2022, Music Midtown announced that “due to circumstances beyond our control, Music Midtown will no longer be taking place this year.” A reason for the cancellation wasn’t given. However, the AP reported that some believed the decision was the result of a 2019 Georgia Supreme Court ruling that limited the ability of private companies to ban guns on public property. This decision stemmed from a 2014 state law that expanded the locations where guns were allowed. The location of the canceled festival was Piedmont Park, a public-private partnership. “In dire economic times for so many Georgians, this cancellation will cost Georgia’s economy a proven $50 million,” Abrams lamented in a statement on her campaign website. “This means that small businesses and workers who rely on events like Music Midtown and their tremendous economic impact have now lost incomes that help put food on the table and a roof over their heads.” Alex Floyd, a spokesperson for Abrams’ campaign, confirmed to the AP that she did not lobby for the outcome of either event. “Stacey Abrams has never supported the All-Star Game boycott or the cancellation of Music Midtown, and in fact has spent her career trying to bring more business and opportunities to Georgia,” Floyd wrote in an email.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report.

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