A judge on Dec. 24 dismissed Kari Lake’s claim that there was no chain of custody for 300,000 mail-in ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona, during the 2022 election, yet posts on social media continue to spread the baseless claim. Every mail-in ballot in the county had a unique barcode and chain of custody documents to ensure security, election officials said.
Even before the polls opened on Election Day, a potentially significant legal battle erupted in Pennsylvania over whether to count mail-in ballots with an incorrect or missing date on the outside envelope.
Pennsylvania uses a “not verified” code on mail-in ballot applications if a voter’s identity couldn’t be immediately verified; voters have six days after an election to submit a valid ID. But an Instagram post and some Republican leaders — including former President Donald Trump — falsely claim the state has “sent out 249,000 ballots to unverified voters” and misleadingly suggest it will result in widespread fraud.
In calling for a “thorough investigation” into “election fraud,” Republican Sen. Rand Paul distorted the facts about a Wisconsin policy that was introduced by Republicans and put in place before the 2016 general election.
The percentage of mail-in ballots rejected in Georgia due to signature issues this year was about the same as in the 2016 and 2018 general elections — contrary to a tweet by President Donald Trump.
Before all of the votes in the 2020 election were counted, President Donald Trump wrongly claimed victory, calling for “all voting to stop” and claiming continuing to count legally cast votes would “disenfranchise” the people who voted for him.
President Trump repeatedly rattled off false and misleading claims about ballots and voting in arguing to his supporters that “massive fraud” is “the only way we can lose.”
About 2,100 voters in Los Angeles County accidentally received mail-in ballots earlier this month without the presidential race. But President Trump described a case where ballots “had everything on it” except “my name.”
In an Oct. 15 town hall on NBC News, President Donald Trump made false and misleading claims on the coronavirus, the economy and more.
Officials in Sonoma County, California, said photos circulating on social media show “old empty envelopes from the November 2018 election” being recycled — not “1,000+ mail-in ballots found in a dumpster,” as social media posts falsely claim.