FACT FOCUS: A look at false and misleading claims surrounding the 2024 election

The Associated Press The Associated Press

A steady stream of false and misleading information is circulating online around the 2024 election. Since early voting began there have been false reports of ballots for former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania being destroyed; more registered voters than those eligible to vote in Michigan; and a voter’s choice being “flipped” by a Dominion voting machine in Georgia.

Here’s a look at the facts.

Video of Trump ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania was fabricated

CLAIM: A video shows ballots marked for Trump being destroyed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, while those for Vice President Kamala Harris were put back in their envelopes to be counted.

THE FACTS: The Bucks County Board of Elections identified the video as “fake” Thursday afternoon. And the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies said the video was “manufactured and amplified” by Russian actors.

“The envelope and materials depicted in this video are clearly not authentic materials belonging to or distributed by the Bucks County Board of Elections,” the board said in a statement. The video was reported to law enforcement.

In a statement released late Friday, the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the video is “part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans.”

Bob Harvie and Diane Ellis-Marseglia, chair and vice chair of the board, respectively, called the video “dangerous misinformation″ in a joint statement.

The Bucks County district attorney’s office said in an emailed statement Thursday evening that they and the Yardley Borough Police Department investigated the video and “concluded that this video was fabricated in an attempt to undermine confidence in the upcoming election.”

The X user who popularized the inauthentic video has previously shared multiple narratives created by a Russian disinformation network known as Storm-1516 or CopyCop, raising questions over whether it originated as part of a foreign influence campaign.

The FBI statement also warned that U.S. intelligence officials expect Russia will “create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans” in the coming weeks.

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

Posts spread misinformation about Michigan’s voter rolls

CLAIM: Michigan has 500,000 more registered voters than people eligible to vote, which creates the potential for widespread fraud.

THE FACTS: This is missing context. While the state does have more total voter registrations than eligible voters, that number includes voters who are inactive but cannot yet be removed from voter rolls under federal and state laws. The number of active voters is far less than those who are eligible to vote, and experts say there is no reason to believe that widespread fraud will result.

Still, numerous social media users suggested the numbers were proof that Michigan is trying to cheat in the 2024 election. Among them was billionaire X owner Elon Musk, who has committed at least $70 million in support of Trump.

“Jocelyn Michelle Benson, shame on you for blatantly lying to the public!” Musk wrote in an X post directed at Michigan’s secretary of state. “You only plan to remove ineligible voters AFTER this election. That necessarily means that there are far more people registered to vote than there eligible voters.”

Benson responded on X, stating: “Let’s be clear: @elonmusk is spreading dangerous disinformation. Here are the facts: There aren’t more voters than citizens in Michigan. There are 7.2 million active registered voters and 7.9 citizens of voting age in our state. Musk is pushing a misleading number that includes 1.2 million inactive records slated for removal in accordance with the law.”

Musk did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

There were approximately 7.9 million people of voting age in Michigan as of July 1, 2023. This figure is 500,000 fewer than the total registered voters — approximately 8.4 million. But that’s because the total registered voters include 1.2 million voters who are inactive. Those labeled inactive have not voted for six consecutive years or have not responded to a notice confirming their residency. Inactive voters are still eligible to vote.

Under state and federal law, voters are only removed from voter rolls after they have been sent a notice that their registration is subject to cancellation and two subsequent federal election cycles have passed without any response or voting activity. Voter registration cannot be canceled only because of a failure to vote.

This waiting period is why there are more total registered voters than eligible ones in the state.

More than 339,000 voter registrations are slated for cancellation in 2025 and more than 257,000 in 2027. As of March 2024, Michigan had canceled more than 800,000 voter registrations since 2019, including 273,609 for possible changes of residency, 532,513 for deaths and 16,716 at the request of the voter, according to its Department of State.

The Republican National Committee and two individual voters filed a federal lawsuit in March against Benson and Michigan Bureau of Elections Director Jonathan Brater for allegedly failing to “maintain clean and accurate voter registration records.” The suit was dismissed Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering, who said the plaintiffs lacked legal standing and, regardless, did not state a plausible claim.

Michigan is hardly the only state with large numbers of inactive voters on its rolls. Every state — aside from the six which are exempt from the National Voter Registration Act — must send voters a cancellation notice and wait two federal election cycles before removing inactive voters.

The large number of inactive voters is a sign of robust list maintenance, according to David Becker, the founder and executive director of The Center for Election Innovation and Research, who served as a co-chair on Michigan’s Election Security Advisory Commission.

Read the full fact check here.

— Melissa Goldin

Georgia voting machines are not flipping votes

CLAIM: A Dominion voting machine in Whitfield County, Georgia, flipped a vote to a candidate not marked by the voter.

THE FACTS: That’s false. The Whitfield County Board of Elections and Registrars issued a press release Oct. 19, noting the case involved one voter out of 6,000 ballots cast since early voting began Oct. 15. The ballot was spoiled, and the voter cast a replacement that was counted. Officials said there was no problem with the voting machine.

Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said every report they’ve seen so far of someone saying their printed ballot didn’t reflect their selections on the touchscreen voting machine has been a result of voter error.

The statements followed a post by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who claimed on X that a voting machine had changed a voter’s ballot in her Georgia district during early voting. She later updated her post to include a statement from county election officials explaining what happened and thanking them for resolving the issue.

Whitfield County election officials said in the press release that the voter noticed when reviewing their printed ballot that it didn’t reflect their choice. A poll worker assisted the voter in marking their choice and casting their vote.

“Georgia law allows voters to spoil their printed ballot if they make the wrong selection on the ballot marking device. If a voter requests to change their selections, they are immediately given a new opportunity to make and print the correct choice,” officials said.

They noted that if there was reason to suspect that the machine made an error it would be taken out of service. No machines were taken out of service, county election officials said.

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