Tag: Facebook Fact-checks

Could submitting a ballot with folds through a candidate’s name invalidate your vote? That’s what a recent Facebook post said. 

On Oct. 22, a Facebook user in Wisconsin posted: “Ballots are not supposed to have fold lines or creases in the candidates name area. My clerk also told me that even in person paper ballots are susceptible to this rule where the fold lines would appear.” 

The user said they reported the issue and their county clerk brought them a new absentee ballot. Another Facebook user reshared the post, saying, “Check your ballots! Folds, creases, and marks could invalidate your ballot. Be diligent.”

However, voting specialists say that a crease through a candidate’s name would not invalidate a cast ballot.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Mark Lindeman, the policy and strategy director for Verified Voting, a group that works with election officials and policymakers on voting and technology issues, said the post’s author shouldn’t worry.

“It’s almost impossible to design a ballot where the folds wouldn’t go through any ‘name areas,’ and it’s also pointless: The scanners could not care less whether there is a fold through someone’s name or party affiliation,” Lindeman said. 

The Facebook post’s image of what looks like a creased ballot “documents no problem whatsoever,” Lindeman said.

A potential problem could arise if a “vote target,” such as an oval the voter fills in to choose their candidate, has a crease through it. This scenario is more than just having a crease through the candidate’s name.

Lindeman said some New Hampshire ballots in a state House race were the subject of a hand recount in 2020 because of this issue, and the state subsequently passed bipartisan legislation to change the scanner settings so the problem wouldn’t happen again. 

Lindeman said ballot designers generally take special effort to make sure this doesn’t happen.

“Mail ballots are designed so that the folds won’t go through vote targets,” Lindeman said. Plus, he said, “modern scanners like those used in most of Wisconsin generally count ballots accurately no matter how they’re folded. Good ballot design provides an extra measure of protection.”

Lindeman said that, in most states, if a mail ballot can’t be scanned for any reason, including problems related to a crease, election officials will either manually tally the ballot for inclusion in the totals, or create and scan a “remake” of the ballot which then is kept with the original. They do this rather than asking the voter to fix their ballot because at this point in the process, the ballot would be separated from any information about who cast it.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission didn’t respond to an inquiry for this article, but its Election Day Manual describes scenarios that could warrant a ballot “remake.” Lindeman said a crease over the spot where the voter marks their choice could fool the machine into thinking the voter selected two choices; if that were to happen, the manual says, two election inspectors must work with the voter to replace the ballot with one that meets the requirements and reflects the voter’s intent.

Lindeman said the Facebook user may have misinterpreted the election worker’s decision to bring him a new ballot.

“It seems like this official literally went out of their way to reassure this voter by replacing a perfectly fine ballot,” he said.

We rate the claim that “ballots are not supposed to have fold lines or creases in the candidates name area” or it could invalidate your vote False.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, concerns are rising about whether candidates will accept the results. One viral post claims Vice President Kamala Harris said she won’t accept the 2024 presidential election result and has lawyers who would overturn it.

“In case you missed it! Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with @NBCNews last night where she proclaimed she would not accept the outcome of the election and has a team of lawyers ready to overturn them,” the Oct. 23 Instagram post said. The post came a day after Harris’ interview with NBC News’ Hallie Jackson in Washington, D.C.

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

We reviewed the full transcript of the interview and found no evidence that Harris said or implied she wouldn’t accept the results. 

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, was asked about a scenario in which former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, again declares victory on election night as votes are still being counted. Trump falsely claimed to have won the 2020 presidential election while votes from many states were yet to be counted; four years on, he has yet to accept defeat.

Harris told Jackson she was focused on the present and her campaigning efforts. 

“We have got two weeks to go, and I’m very much grounded in the present, in terms of the task at hand,” she said. 

As for what could happen on election night if Trump prematurely declared victory, Harris said: “We will deal with election night and the days after, as they come, and we have the resources and the expertise and the focus on that as well.”

When Jackson asked Harris whether she had teams ready to handle postelection disputes, Harris said, “Of course.” But having a team of election lawyers is hardly evidence of a plot to overturn the election. 

Both parties have been involved in several disputes so far. A recent Bloomberg Law analysis found more than 165 election-related lawsuits nationwide with Republicans and GOP-affiliated groups responsible for 55% of cases filed.  

We asked the Harris campaign how many lawyers it had and in what circumstance would they be used in postelection disputes. A campaign spokesperson did not respond to that question, or say how many lawsuits the campaign had been involved in. The spokesperson referred us to the NBC News transcript. 

Harris didn’t say she would not accept the 2024 election’s outcome. On the campaign trail, she has often highlighted Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election as part of her pitch to American voters.

We rate this claim that Harris said she wouldn’t accept the election result False.

Mark our words: Your ballot won’t be disqualified if an election worker writes on it.

But social media posts tell a different story.

“I want you all to know something … if you are checking in at the polls and they happen to write anything on your ballot before they give it to you to put in the voting machine … a letter, a checkmark, a star, an R or a D any writing of any kind … please request a new ballot,” an Oct. 20 Instagram post read. “Your ballot could be disqualified if it is written on. Please be on the lookout for this type of behavior.”

The same post circulated on Facebook and X this summer, and similar claims surfaced during the 2020 election.

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

 (Screenshot from Instagram.)

Although election rules vary by state, an election worker marking your ballot won’t invalidate your vote. This has been fact-checked many times.

In August, Florida election clerks reassured voters that officials are trained to avoid writing on ballots, and even if it happens, the ballots won’t be disqualified, according to The Associated Press, which fact-checked a verbatim version of this claim.

Elections officials from Massachusetts, Maryland and Maine similarly told Snopes in August that poll workers rarely write on ballots and that stray marks won’t invalidate them.

In some states, election officials are required by law to mark voters’ ballots — often to promote election security. Election workers in North Carolina must write an identifying number on mail-in and early voting ballots, allowing them to be retrieved and discarded if “voter challenges” arise, such as voters dying before Election Day or voting more than once.

Heider Garcia, an elections administrator in Texas, told PolitiFact in 2020 that Texas law requires poll workers to sign the back of voters’ ballots to verify the ballots’ authenticity.

We rate the claim that ballots can be disqualified if an election worker writes on them False. 

What the host of a conservative media website recently described as “election interference” and a “massive breaking news story coming out of Oregon” has an easy explanation, although that makes for a less outrageous social media post.

“EXCLUSIVE,” said the caption of the Oct. 14 Instagram post from Jeremy Herrell, host of Live From America TV. “The Sec. Of State of Oregon, LaVonne Griffin-Valade has REMOVEDPresident Trump and JD Vance from the official State website 19 days before the election! This is election interference, and I need you all to get involved on this one! Tag and share!”

“Oregon sec of state removes Trump & Vance from website!” text over the video said.

In the video clip, Herrell repeats the claim in the caption and shows a “voters’ pamphlet” section of the Oregon secretary of state’s website. He then clicks on a section called “president” and shows that it lists Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, but not former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. Under a section called “vice president,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, is listed but not U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s running mate.

“They have literally removed Donald Trump and JD Vance from the Oregon secretary of state’s website,” Herrell said. “It stinks to high heaven.”

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Laura Kerns, a spokesperson for the Oregon secretary of state, told PolitiFact the claim is false.

While Trump’s and Vance’s names don’t appear under the list of presidential and vice presidential candidates in Oregon’s voters’ pamphlet for the Nov. 5 general election, that’s because Trump “declined to provide a statement” for it, Kerns said. 

“Candidates may submit a statement to the voters’ pamphlet, but it is optional,” Kerns said. “In this case, as he did for the primary in May, Donald Trump declined to provide a statement.”

Oregon Public Broadcasting reported in March that Trump wasn’t in the pamphlet before the primary but that he would “still appear on ballots mailed to Republican voters.”

The Oregon Republican County similarly said in an Oct. 10 statement on its website that President Trump WILL be on your ballot” in the general election and that “the decision to not submit a statement was made by the Trump campaign earlier this year.”

The secretary of state’s website includes a note above its voters’ guide that says “candidates are not required to file voters’ pamphlet statements” and that “only candidates who submitted statements are listed in the online menus. All candidates will appear on the ballots.”

This note also appears in the Instagram post’s video. 

Searching the secretary of state’s website for candidate filings, Trump is listed as a Republican candidate for president in both the 2024 primary and general elections, and Vance is listed as a Republican candidate for vice president in the general. 

We rate its claim that Trump and Vance were removed from the Oregon secretary of state’s website False.

Former President Donald Trump’s legal battles are not over, contrary to a widely shared social media post claiming otherwise.

“Trump’s convictions have all been overturned and he is getting his $500,000,000.00 back!” the viral Oct. 10 Threads post said. “Proven in the appellate courts that it was all political and a sham.”

The Threads post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

Trump’s court cases have not been overturned, and he has not been awarded $500 million. 

A New York jury in May convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to an adult film actor. The judge overseeing that case moved sentencing to November, but after the presidential election. Trump has appealed the verdict and is seeking to move it from state court to federal court.

Trump is also embroiled in other court matters. In January, a different New York jury ruled against Trump in a civil defamation lawsuit brought by author E. Jean Carroll, awarding Carroll $83 million in damages. Trump has appealed the decision.

Trump also faces charges in Georgia over what prosecutors argue were attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. In March, a judge dismissed some of the 13 charges against Trump and other defendants but not the entire case, which is yet to reach trial. Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has appealed the dismissal of those charges while Trump’s legal team is seeking in a pretrial appeal to have Willis removed from the case.

Trump has had two major legal victories in July. The Supreme Court ruled that presidents, including Trump, have immunity from prosecution when carrying out official acts as office holders. In July, a federal judge in Florida dismissed a criminal case against Trump for withholding classified documents. However, the case is not over; Special Counsel Jack Smith has appealed that decision.

Smith has also refiled charges against Trump in Washington, D.C., in a case about federal election interference. The charges were refiled to comply with the Supreme Court’s judgment on presidential immunity.

We found no news record of Trump successfully having his only conviction, in the New York falsified records case, overturned and there is no record of him getting $500 million back.

We rate the claim that Trump’s convictions have been overturned False.

Once running mates, former Vice President Mike Pence and former President Donald Trump parted ways after the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. Pence, a lifelong Republican, has said he would not endorse Trump in 2024. 

But one video circulating on social media made it look like Pence went even further. 

“Vote for Kamala Harris as president of the United States, or Tim Walz as her running mate. Period, paragraph,” Pence said, according to a video shared Oct. 13 on Threads and Instagram. 

The clip also showed Pence saying: “Between me and my former running mate, I cannot endorse President Trump’s continuing assertion that I should have set aside my oath to support and defend the Constitution and acted in a way that would have overturned the election in January of 2021.”

(Screenshot from Instagram)

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

This video was from Pence’s Aug. 9 appearance at an Atlanta conservative forum dubbed “The Gathering,” and hosted by conservative podcaster and radio talk show personality Erick Erickson. It was edited to cut the beginning of Pence’s statement, which shows the opposite of what the social media posts claim.

“Let me go on the record here at The Gathering,” Pence said in the original interview. “I could never vote for Kamala Harris as President of the United States, or Tim Walz as her running mate.”

Around three minutes later, C-SPAN video of the event shows, Pence made the comments about disagreeing with Trump over his “oath to support and defend the Constitution” — not right after, as the edited video showed.

PolitiFact found no news reports or statements that would support the claim that Pence has endorsed Harris or Walz.

We rate this claim False. ​