Quick Take

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.

Full Story

On Nov. 14,  the Associated Press called the Arizona gubernatorial race for Democratic former Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who won 50.3% of the vote when all the ballots were tallied in her race against Republican candidate Kari Lake. 

But Arizona — Maricopa County in particular — has been the target of false and misleading claims and accusations of election fraud spread by Lake and others since Election Day. 

In a civil suit filed against Hobbs and Maricopa County officials on Dec. 9, Lake made several claims about alleged fraud, including a claim that county election officials violated state law for nearly 300,000 mail-in ballots because there were no chain of custody documents for those ballots.

On page 45 of the filing, the suit says, “Maricopa County failed to maintain and document the required secure chain of custody for hundreds of thousands of ballots, in violation of Arizona law.”

Lake alleges that there are “whistleblowers and witnesses with first-hand knowledge” that the county violated the state chain of custody rules, which allowed an unknown number of ballots to be added to the count by county employees.

The county filed a motion to dismiss the suit on Dec. 15, claiming Lake misunderstood the forms required in its chain of custody process. 

The county also said Lake’s claim “regarding chain of custody is based on an incomplete understanding of election administration and baseless speculation about what could happen at the County’s contractor, Runbeck Election Services – not on any allegations of what actually happened.”

On Dec. 19, Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson ruled Lake’s lawsuit could go to trial on two out of 10 initial counts — including the claim about the ballot chain of custody and a claim that some ballot printers malfunctioned because of an “intentional action” by an election official on Election Day, causing Lake to lose.  

A witness for Lake, Heather Honey, an investigator and supply chain auditor, testified at trial that county election officials had not provided her with the delivery receipt forms that would show the county followed chain of custody procedures for ballots placed in drop boxes on Election Day. But during cross-examination by the county’s attorney, Honey testified that the forms did exist and that she had seen them in photos — they just weren’t physically provided through a public records request.

Honey also testified that she was told that employees of Runbeck Election Services, an election software company headquartered in Phoenix, submitted about 50 ballots for family and friends into the ballot stream improperly. Honey later said she couldn’t identify those 50 ballots.

On Dec. 24, Thompson dismissed the last two counts of Lake’s suit, saying that Lake failed to provide evidence that officials intentionally took steps that changed the election outcome.

The judge said, “Every single witness before the Court disclaimed any personal knowledge of such misconduct. The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence.” 

Days later, the judge ordered Lake to pay Hobbs $33,040 for witness fees.

Lake appealed Thompson’s ruling on Dec. 27, asking the state Court of Appeals to take “special action” and expedite her request to throw out the results of the election. The court agreed to hear the case on Feb. 1, KGUN reported.

Lake also filed a petition to transfer the appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court on Dec. 30. The Supreme Court denied Lake’s request, saying Lake needs to go through the appeals court process.

Meanwhile, claims that there was no chain of custody for ballots in Maricopa County are still spreading on social media. 

In a Dec. 29 interview with conservative commentator Larry Elder, Lake claimed she “won in a landslide,” saying “almost 300,000 ballots had no chain of custody” and “came out of who knows where.” Lake’s interview was shared in a Facebook post by Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers that received more than 106,000 views.

A Facebook video posted on Dec. 29 shared the claim that chain of custody documents for 300,000 ballots don’t exist; the post has received nearly 1,500 views and 1,700 likes. The video includes the image of a tweet from a lawyer that said, “Records required to certify chain of custody vanished, as unaccounted ballots cast election in doubt.”

But there’s no basis for the claim that the chain of custody documents “vanished.”

As we said before, Lake’s witness testified that the forms do exist and that she has seen photos of them.

Matthew Roberts, spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections Department, told us in an email on Jan. 6 that the county followed all the required chain of custody policies and procedures during the 2022 election.

“There are robust tracking and security procedures in place to document and ensure proper chain-of-custody of early ballots on Election Day. These policies and procedures were followed on Election Day, as well as throughout the early voting period,” Roberts said. “At no point during the process were chain of custody policies broken or procedures not followed and documented.”

Chain of Custody Process in Maricopa County

The Maricopa County Elections Department published a 2022 Elections Plan for the primary and general elections, which said that each mail-in ballot is tracked with a unique mail barcode and a “robust set of chain of custody documents that track an early ballot as it progresses through every step of the process.”

“The combination of the unique barcode and these chain-of-custody documents ensure the integrity and security of the early ballot,” the plan said. 

Before the ruling that Lake’s lawsuit could go to trial, Roberts explained the chain of custody process for mail-in ballots in a Dec. 13 email to FactCheck.org. 

“The Elections Department picks up the ballots that are returned by mail directly from the USPS regional warehouse in Phoenix. They are retrieved by a bipartisan team of two,” Roberts said, referring to the U.S. Postal Service.

Roberts said mail-in ballots that are picked up from the USPS warehouse are then delivered to Runbeck Election Services. The elections department staff that picked up the ballots and the Runbeck staff then sign a chain of custody transfer slip to document the transfer.

Afterward, Runbeck scans the affidavit envelopes to get an image of the voter signatures and puts those into an automated system for the Maricopa County Elections Department to conduct signature verifications. 

According to the 2022 Elections Plan, “After the initial inbound scan pass, Runbeck then stores the unopened ballot packets in their facility in a secure, water and fireproof vault, while Elections Department staff review the digital images of voter affidavit signatures… thus eliminating the need to handle the actual physical ballot packet multiple times.” 

The pickup and drop-off of ballot packets between USPS, Runbeck and the Maricopa County Tabulation and Elections Center happen “on a regular and regimented schedule to ensure that processing timeframes needed to tabulate ballots in a timely manner can be maintained,” according to the elections plan.

Ballots that are placed in a secure and sealed drop box are picked up by ballot couriers, who work with the elections department in bipartisan teams of two to retrieve the ballots. The team then fills out a chain of custody form with the Vote Center inspector or a representative from the government facility, and the ballot box is sealed with tamper-evident seals, Roberts told us.  

“All of the seals are logged on the form. The ballots are returned to the Elections Department where we complete an audit of the ballots,” Roberts said. 

Once the audit is done, the ballots are delivered to Runbeck and follow the same steps as the mail-in ballots.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Maricopa County Elections Department. “2022 Elections Plan.” Accessed 16 Dec 2022.

Jones. Brea. “Viral Video Spouts Baseless Claim About Early Voting in Arizona.” FactCheck.org. 1 Nov 2022.

Jones. Brea. “Posts Mislead on Number of Election Day Votes in Maricopa County.” FactCheck.org. 1 Dec 2022.

Patel, Komal. “Posts Falsely Claim to Show Hobbs in Arizona Election Tabulation Room.” FactCheck.org. 11 Nov 2022. 

Roberts, Matthew. Communications manager, Maricopa County Elections Department. Email to FactCheck.org. 13 Dec 2022.

Runbeck Election Services. “CLAIMS VS. FACTS.” Accessed 16 Dec 2022.

Runbeck Election Services. “Our Company.” Accessed 16 Dec 2022. 

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Ballot Printer Delayed Maricopa Voting, Contrary to Unfounded Claims.” Updated 29 Nov 2022.  

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Ballot Processing Continues in Closely Watched States Amid Unfounded Claims of Fraud.” Updated 19 Nov 2022.

The post No Evidence for Kari Lake’s Claim that Maricopa County Ballots Lacked Chain of Custody Records appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Summary

The midterm elections are finally over, but it won’t be long before the 2024 campaign cycle — which will really start in 2023 — gets going. Before that happens, we’ve put together this list of the year’s biggest whoppers that politicians and others made over the past 12 months.

Political appeals to fear were as popular as ever in 2022. Republicans sounded a false alarm about Democrats authorizing the IRS to target middle-income taxpayers with tens of thousands of new IRS “agents.” On the other side of the aisle, Democrats attempted to scare up votes by claiming that Republicans had a plan to “end” the Social Security and Medicare programs based on a proposal that few Republicans supported.

President Joe Biden earned mentions in our roundup for giving his policies too much credit for a significant reduction in the federal deficit — and for claiming to have rescued an economy “in decline.” Meanwhile, his predecessor, Donald Trump, a regular on our Whoppers lists, deflected from his own mishandling of classified White House documents by falsely alleging that other past presidents had done something comparable.

COVID-19 misinformation continued to be a huge problem online as well. One viral video advanced a conspiracy theory that the disease was caused by snake venom being injected into the public water supply, and another popular video promoted the equally bizarre claim that the COVID-19 vaccines are being used to depopulate the planet.

We also addressed misinformation about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the statements of high-ranking Russian officials who denied for months that Russia was preparing to attack Ukraine. Then, after the attack had commenced, pro-Russia social media posts manufactured a claim about the supposed U.S. funding of secret Ukrainian “biolabs” to justify the Russia-provoked war.

And that’s just a sampling of the claims we’ve highlighted in our compilation. Read the analysis section for the complete list of falsehoods and other nonsense.

Analysis

Those 87,000 IRS “agents.” The Republican talking point of the year was the falsehood that “87,000 IRS agents” were coming after the “middle class” or the average Joe thanks to the Democrats. Former President Donald Trump added the bogus tidbit that this 87,000-strong “army” could “carry guns.” The figure refers to the number of employees the IRS could hire with funding that was part of the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act — but most of those workers would replace retiring or departing workers and most new positions would be in customer service, the Treasury Department told us.

Some hires would be tax enforcers, but their focus would be auditing high-income earners to make sure they pay the taxes they legally owe the government, administration officials have said. Only IRS “special agents” in the Criminal Investigation division are law enforcement officers who are authorized to carry guns.

Trump’s false claims about past presidents and classified documents. After the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8 — seizing 11 sets of classified records, some labeled “top secret” — Trump falsely claimed that he was being held to a different standard than his predecessors. In an early October rally, Trump claimed that “many other presidents stored their millions of pages of stuff in unsecured warehouses,” giving several faulty examples.

The National Archives and Records Administration, not the former presidents, “securely moved” and stored documents in secure, temporary facilities while presidential libraries were being built, NARA said in a statement. For instance, Trump claimed President George H.W. Bush “took millions and millions of documents to a former bowling alley” and “an old and broken Chinese restaurant” with “no security.” Actually, NARA kept documents in a warehouse-like facility, which had once been a bowling alley and Chinese restaurant, while Bush’s official library was being built in Texas. A 1994 Associated Press story described how “[u]niformed guards” and “sophisticated electronic detectors along walls and doors” provided security.

The documents weren’t in Bush’s possession, as was the case with the classified material the Department of Justice had been trying to retrieve from Trump’s personal residence in Florida.

‘2000 Mules.’ The documentary by conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza — viewed by over 1 million people — purported to provide definitive proof of a massive conspiracy by Democrats to commit widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Researchers from the conservative group True the Vote used geotracking data of cell phones and claimed it provided evidence that thousands of so-called “mules” were employed to illegally stuff ballot drop boxes with fraudulent ballots. But, we found, the film never delivered the goods.

When Georgia investigators looked into a handful of videos showing people depositing multiple ballots, it turned out to be people legally dropping off ballots for eligible voters in their immediate family. The Jan. 6 House select committee released video of an interview of former Attorney General Bill Barr, who offered a blistering assessment, calling the cellphone data “singularly unimpressive” and saying the film simply “didn’t establish widespread illegal harvesting.” Nonetheless, top Republicans, including Trump, continue to cite and promote the film.

Biden’s deficit spin. Pushing back against the Republican narrative that rampant deficit spending was causing inflation to spike, President Joe Biden said numerous times this year that his policies reduced the country’s deficits by $350 billion in his first year and by another $1.3 trillion this year. As we wrote in April, most of the reduction in deficits was the result of expiring emergency pandemic spending. And if not for more emergency pandemic and infrastructure spending championed by Biden, deficits would have fallen further than they ultimately did, according to Congressional Budget Office projections.

“It’s pretty silly,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told us. “He [Biden] didn’t cut the deficit, he increased it.”

Biden’s recovery puffery. The U.S. economy already was improving when Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act. Yet he wrongly claimed that the Democratic COVID-19 relief bill “literally turned the economy from one that was in decline to one that’s in recovery.”

Multiple economists told us that the economy, while weakened, definitely was “growing” prior to that bill becoming law in March 2021. For example, U.S. gross domestic product had increased for three consecutive fiscal quarters and the unemployment rate had decreased nearly nine percentage points from its pandemic peak. That economic progress was bolstered by pandemic-related assistance authorized under Biden’s predecessor.

Mediscare 2022. Most elections include claims targeting seniors about politicians wanting to “end” Medicare and/or Social Security, and the 2022 midterm was exhibit A for this Mediscare fear-mongering. Democrats seized on a policy proposal by GOP Sen. Rick Scott that, in part, called for Congress to reauthorize all federal legislation every five years. That certainly could lead to major changes for Medicare and Social Security, but many Republicans didn’t embrace the proposal. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected it. Democrats wrongly tagged many Republican candidates with Scott’s plan anyway.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee went as far as claiming that “Republicans will END Social Security and Medicare.” Biden often described Scott’s plan accurately, but a week before the election, he, too, claimed: “You’ve been paying into Social Security your whole life. … Now these guys want to take it away,” referring also to comments by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson that funding for the two programs should be discretionary, not mandatory, and approved by Congress every year. Neither Scott nor Johnson said they wanted to “end” these programs for seniors. More importantly, Democrats were wrong to claim others in the party supported such a drastic move.

Never-ending spin on COVID-19 vaccines. As with last year, 2022 was awash in misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines. Many social media users, in particular, shared supposed revelations about vaccine safety or efficacy allegedly pulled from official documents or government data. But those files didn’t support the claims.

In several cases, posts misinterpreted Pfizer documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to incorrectly claim they showed the company’s COVID-19 shot was unsafe, including during pregnancy. But in reality, the documents were evidence of the vaccine’s continued safety. In another instance, a post falsely said some of the Pfizer FOIA documents showed the vaccine was “12% effective.” That, too, is wrong — and didn’t even come from Pfizer. Instead, the faulty figure likely came from a misreading of a Food and Drug Administration briefing document.

Purveyors of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation also distorted a misleading analysis of data from v-safe, a new safety monitoring system the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled for the COVID-19 vaccines.

Pair of videos push far-fetched COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Stew Peters, a conservative radio host, produced two viral videos this year, garnering tens of millions of views between them.

The first, titled “Watch the Water,” was released in the spring. It was comprised of a single, roughly hour-long, interview with Bryan Ardis, a retired chiropractor who sells purported acne cures online. Ardis spun out a fantastical conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is not caused by a virus, but by snake venom injected into public water by government agencies and the Catholic Church. That premise was lifted from an episode of the network TV drama “The Blacklist.”

Spoiler alert: COVID-19 is definitely caused by a coronavirus, which has been studied by scientists around the world. The vaccines that several competing pharmaceutical companies have tailored to the virus have been effective in preventing serious illness and death.

The second video, called “Died Suddenly,” came out in the fall. It relied heavily on references to other conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccines — including the false claim that circulated earlier this year that Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome was somehow related to vaccination; the long-standing false claim that athletes are dropping dead due to vaccination; and the false claim that plane crashes were caused by pilots suffering from the side effects of vaccination.

The video repeatedly displayed what appeared to be ordinary postmortem blood clots that are often found in dead bodies, but suggested that the clots were a new anomaly, surmising that they were caused by COVID-19 vaccines. The video suggested that this is part of a shadowy plot to depopulate the world.

Coronavirus origin baloney. In May, former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro incorrectly claimed, as others have before, that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci “killed a lot of people” by funding research that led to the creation of the coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2. Elon Musk, the new owner and CEO of Twitter, repeated the baseless claim earlier this week on the platform, less than a month after the company suspended enforcement of its COVID-19 misinformation policy. 

The U.S. indirectly funded some bat coronavirus research at a lab in Wuhan, China, where the COVID-19 pandemic began, but as we explained, those experiments could not have generated SARS-CoV-2 because the viruses used were very different. Published research suggests the coronavirus spilled over into humans from the wildlife trade, as other coronaviruses have done in the past. 

Fauci is stepping down from his government positions at the end of this month, after more than half a century in public service.

Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is still ongoing, was a major news story this year. But for months before the war began, Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, repeatedly denied that Russia was preparing an attack, insisting that Russia is a “peaceful country” and accusing the U.S. and other nations of a manufactured “hysteria.” On Feb. 24, Russia launched a full-scale invasion, going through with the incursion that others suspected it was planning all along.

Biolabs in Ukraine: As Russia intensified its attack on Ukraine in late winter, Moscow also stepped up a disinformation campaign about Putin’s motivation for the invasion, which was amplified by social media in the U.S. Facebook posts spread the false claim that the U.S. was funding biolabs “engaged in top-secret zoonotic and infectious disease research in dozens of locations across Ukraine” and the creation of bioweapons.

The posts misrepresented the U.S. Biological Threat Reduction Program. The program evolved from a 2005 pact under which the Defense Department and Ukraine’s Ministry of Health agreed to work together to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and to ensure that labs studying disease in Ukraine could not be used to develop biological weapons. 

Adding insult to injury. Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, was physically assaulted by a hammer-wielding intruder at their San Francisco home in late October. The alleged assailant, David DePape, was not a prostitute hired by Paul Pelosi — a baseless claim that was elevated by several conservative figures on social media.

A San Francisco Police Department spokesman told us that officers found no “evidence that shows that the victim and the suspect knew each other.” Plus, DePape told FBI officers that he broke into the house intending to capture Nancy — not Paul. Prior to the attack, DePape reportedly wrote online posts repeating theories about fraud in the 2020 election and other conspiracies. 

Trump claims he stopped the steal — in 2018. Two days after the midterm elections, and with Republicans blaming him for the party’s lackluster results, Trump turned his ire on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — quite likely Trump’s chief rival for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. In a rambling Nov. 10 statement, Trump accused DeSantis of insufficient “loyalty” to him, and recalled how he “sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys” to Broward County during the 2018 election to stop “ballot theft” and help “Ron DeSanctimonious” become governor. One problem: Nobody else recalled Trump’s heroics.

“The Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office has no documentation of any federal law enforcement presence during the 2018 elections,” Ivan Castro, a spokesperson for the county supervisor of elections, told us in an email. “Also, to clarify, there is no evidence of corruption during the 2018 election cycle in Broward County.”

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Sources

Jones, Brea. “IRS Will Target ‘High-Income’ Tax Evaders with New Funding, Contrary to Social Media Posts.” FactCheck.org. 18 Aug 2022.

Gore, D’Angelo. “Florida GOP Attacks Crist with Misleading Claims About the IRS and Police.” FactCheck.org. 9 Sep 2022.

Farley, Robert et. al. “Major Themes of the Midterms.” FactCheck.org. 7 Nov 2022.

Farley, Robert and Lori Robertson. “Trump’s Faulty ‘Double Standard’ Document Claim.” FactCheck.org. 10 Oct 2022.

Farley, Robert. “Ads Distort Oz’s Position on Abortion, Taxes and Social Security.” FactCheck.org. 19 Oct 2022.

Farley, Robert. “Democrats Misleadingly Claim ‘Republicans’ Plan’ Would ‘End’ Social Security, Medicare.” FactCheck.org. 29 Apr 2022.

Gore, D’Angelo. “Biden’s Misleading Claims About the Economic Recovery and Unemployment.” FactCheck.org. 23 Sep 2022.

Spencer, Saranac Hale and D’Angelo Gore. “Conservative Figures Spread Baseless Claims About Attack on Paul Pelosi.” FactCheck.org. 1 Nov 2022.

Gambardello, Joseph A. “Social Media Posts Misrepresent U.S.-Ukraine Threat Reduction Program.” FactCheck.org. 2 Mar 2022.

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “COVID-19 Is Caused by a Virus, Not Snake Venom.” FactCheck.org. 18 Apr 2022.

Spencer, Saranac Hale, et al. “‘Died Suddenly’ Pushes Bogus Depopulation Theory.” FactCheck.org. 1 Dec 2022.

Farley, Robert. “Evidence Gaps in ‘2000 Mules.'” FactCheck.org. 10 Jun 2022, updated 13 Jun 2022.

Farley, Robert. “Biden’s Deficit Spin,” FactCheck.org. 27 Apr 2022.

McDonald, Jessica. “Posts Misinterpret Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Monitoring Document.” FactCheck.org. 18 Mar 2022.

McDonald, Jessica. “COVID-19 Vaccination Doesn’t Increase Miscarriage Risk, Contrary to Naomi Wolf’s Spurious Stat.” FactCheck.org. 24 Aug 2022.

Robertson, Lori. “Pfizer Documents Show Vaccine Is Highly Effective, Contrary to Social Media Posts.” FactCheck.org. 16 May 2022.

Jaramillo, Catalina. “Posts Distort Misleading Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Data.” FactCheck.org. 28 Oct 2022.

“How do we know vaccines are safe?.” FactCheck.org. 4 Mar 2021.

McDonald, Jessica. “Navarro Falsely Links Fauci to Pandemic Origin.” FactCheck.org. 19 May 2022.

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The post The Whoppers of 2022 appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Quick Take 

In a clip from Fox News’ coverage of the Georgia Senate runoff, the vote tallies for both candidates briefly drop by thousands of votes. Social media posts use the clip to falsely claim election fraud. The Associated Press, which provided the data to Fox, said the clip shows a brief overestimate of votes caused by human error.   

Full Story 

The tight political races in the 2022 midterm election fueled a wide range of false and misleading claims of election fraud, as we’ve previously written.

In the closely watched Georgia Senate runoff held on Dec. 6, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock faced Republican candidate Herschel Walker. Warnock’s win bolstered the Democrats’ control of the Senate for the next two years.

More than 1.8 million people voted during the runoff’s early voting period held between Nov. 28 and Dec. 2 — a record number of votes. There were 1,630,860 voters who cast a ballot on Dec. 6, according to the unofficial election results from the Georgia secretary of state. 

But as the votes were tallied that night, a live broadcast on Fox News sparked claims of election fraud on social media, as the number and percentage of votes for each candidate decreased for a short period.

An Instagram post shared on Dec. 7 shows the clip with the caption, “They did it again. Does anyone really believe we have election integrity?” 

“More disappearing votes on live on TV,” the caption on a Dec. 7 Instagram post says. “Cheaters, lyres and a bunch of thieves,” reads a comment.

The 17-second video shared on the post shows a Fox News logo next to a graphic projecting the election results at 8:31 p.m. Central Time. 

The clip starts with 79% of the votes being counted. Warnock has 1,429,004 votes and 50.2% of the vote, compared to Walker’s 1,417,926 votes and 49.8%.   

The results on the video then show 78% of the vote counted, with 1,422,652 votes and 50.3% going to Warnock, and Walker’s votes dropping to 1,407,578 and 49.7%. Both candidates lose votes in the clip. Warnock’s vote count goes down 6,352 votes, compared to Walker’s drop of 10,348 votes.

The video is, indeed, a real Fox News clip, but a Fox spokesperson referred us to the Associated Press, saying the Fox vote data came directly from the AP.

Lauren Easton, an AP spokesperson, told us in an email that the video showed a brief overestimate of votes caused by human error.    

“Human error caused us to briefly provide incorrect, overstated numbers for less than a minute on Tuesday night,” Easton said.  “As soon as we saw the mistake, we quickly returned to providing the numbers reported by the state.”

The correct vote count at 8:31 p.m. CT would have been 1,422,652 votes for Warnock and 1,407,578 votes for Walker.

Later that night, the AP called the race for Warnock, with other outlets, including Fox News, calling the race soon after.

Warnock received 1,820,557 votes and 51.4% of the vote, and Walker received 1,721,200 votes and 48.6%, according to the unofficial election results from the Georgia secretary of state as of Dec. 14. 

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Associated Press. “Why AP Called the Georgia Senate Runoff for Warnock.” 6 Dec 2022.

Barrow, Bill and Jeff Amy. “Warnock wins Senate reelection, giving Dems another seat.” Associated Press. Updated 7 Dec 2022.

Easton, Lauren. Spokesperson for the Associated Press. Email to FactCheck.org. 13 Dec 2022.

“Georgia Election 2022 (Runoff).” Georgia.gov. Accessed 12 Dec 2022.

Ibssa, Lalee and Murray Isabella. “Early voting for Georgia Senate runoff shattered records. Why?” ABC News. 5 Dec 2022.

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Patel, Komal. “Posts Falsely Claim to Show Hobbs in Arizona Election Tabulation Room.” FactCheck.org. 11 Nov 2022.

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Ballot Printer Delayed Maricopa Voting, Contrary to Unfounded Claims.” FactCheck.org. Updated 29 Nov 2022.

The post Human Error, Not Fraud, Shown in Fox Election Coverage of Georgia Runoff appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Quick Take

Social media posts falsely suggest there was fraud in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race, citing a TV graphic that showed Republican State Sen. Doug Mastriano with nearly 500,000 more votes than Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, but Mastriano trailing 41.6% to 56.6%. The graphic showed inaccurate numbers that were quickly corrected on air.

Full Story

At about 11 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 8, about 94% of the votes were counted in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race. Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro was declared the victor, with 55% of the votes, over Republican State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who received 42%, according to the Associated Press.   

As of Nov. 22, Shapiro won with 3,012,691 votes, or 56.4%, while Mastriano received 2,231,882 votes, or 41.8%, according to the unofficial election results from the Pennsylvania Department of State. 

But posts on social media shared a graphic aired on the conservative media outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network, or RSBN, that included inaccurate partial results of the race. The posts falsely suggest that the graphic was proof of election fraud. 

One of the posts was shared on Instagram on Nov. 10 and another was shared on Nov. 21.

On Nov. 21, Mastriano — who has repeated voter fraud claims about the 2020 election and was at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 — tweeted the RSBN graphic with the caption, “Interesting.”

The RSBN graphic showed there were 370,706 votes for Shapiro and 844,669 votes for Mastriano, but that Shapiro had 56.6% of the vote compared to Mastriano’s 41.6%. It also showed that 36% of the votes had been counted.

One comment on the Nov. 10 post said, “They don’t care that we all know they cheat. Who’s going to do anything about it??”

Although the graphic is authentic, it includes incorrect information and was briefly shown before being corrected on air and removed, according to an RSBN press release dated Nov. 11 on the station’s website. 

RSBN said in the press release that the “incorrect vote counts and incorrect percentages” were broadcast for “just over a minute starting at 10:04 p.m. ET and ending at 10:05 p.m. ET.”

At 10:21 p.m., the Associated Press reported that 43% of the vote was counted, with Shapiro receiving 57.2% of the vote compared to Mastriano’s 41.1%, according to PennLive.

 Manual Entry of Results Caused Error

The inaccurate graphic occurred when the station was forced to manually enter the vote counts, according to the station’s press release. 

RSBN said a third-party provider that was feeding election results to the station had an issue with the station’s servers, causing RSBN to manually enter the election data into the system for the first five hours of the broadcast. 

“Our talented anchors caught the error and corrected it on-air, informing everyone the graphic was incorrect and the numbers did not add up. We immediately took it off the air when it was brought to our attention,” RSBN said. “The numbers were incorrect compared to the actual numbers tabulated by the secretary of state of Pennsylvania.” 

As this example shows, live TV reports aren’t always accurate on Election Day. Similar situations have occurred in the past. 

During the 2021 Senate runoff elections in Georgia, social media posts shared clips of election night newscasts as evidence that votes had been taken away from Republican Sen. David Perdue. But the news clips show two data-entry errors that were quickly corrected, as we previously reported.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Mautner, Chris. “Election night in Pennsylvania 2022 results from key races: recap.” PennLive. Updated 9 Nov 2022.

Pennsylvania Department of State. Press release. “Acting Secretary Of State Outlines Vote-Counting Process After Election Day In Pennsylvania.” 24 Oct 2022.

Right Side Broadcasting Network. Press release. “RELEASE: ERROR DURING ELECTION BROADCAST LEADING TO INCORRECT DATA BEING DISPLAYED ON SCREEN.” 11 Nov 2022. 

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “False Claims of Fraud in Georgia Runoffs.” FactCheck.org. 8 Jan 2021. 

Stockburger, George. “Josh Shapiro declares victory in Pennsylvania Governor race.” ABC27. 8 Nov 2022.

The post Inaccurate TV Graphic Sparks Erroneous Claims of Election Fraud in Pennsylvania appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Quick Take

Florida law allows election officials to start counting early in-person and mail-in ballots before Election Day. But social media posts falsely claim Florida counted all of its more than 7 million votes in five hours on Election Day and states that took longer committed “voter fraud.” Most states don’t allow vote counting to begin until Election Day or after polls close.

Full Story

Shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 8, media outlets such as the Associated Press called the Florida gubernatorial race, projecting that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had defeated his Democratic challenger, former Gov. Charlie Crist. 

The early announcement in Florida was possible because of the state’s election laws, which allow officials to start processing and counting all early votes and mail-in ballots as they are received before Election Day.

But a video on Instagram makes the false claim that Florida counted all of its votes on Election Day, and falsely claims that states that didn’t complete vote tabulation as quickly were committing “voter fraud.”   

“Florida counted 7.5 million votes in five hours,” conservative commentator Kendall Bailey says in the video. “Other states are saying it might take till the end of the year to count 2 million votes. You’re fired! It’s voter fraud.”   

Bailey also falsely claims it’s “illegal” for states to take that long to count votes, repeating similar claims about the timeliness of counting votes. 

The video received over 134,000 views and nearly 16,000 likes. Several other social media posts make similar claims comparing Florida’s vote count with other states. 

But, as we said earlier, election officials in Florida didn’t count all the ballots in one day, let alone in five hours. 

Florida law allows the counting of all early votes and mail-in ballots — which made up the majority of the state’s votes in 2022 — to begin upon arrival at their precincts before Election Day.

Releasing the election results before the polls close is a felony.

Other states have laws that delay vote counting until Election Day or after the polls close, as we’ve written before.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there are 23 states that begin counting votes on Election Day before polls close, and 16 states that don’t begin counting ballots until after polls have closed.

Florida is one of 10 states, including Arizona, that begin counting mail ballots dropped off before Election Day. But, as we wrote, Arizona’s election workers received more than twice as many ballots on Election Day as they had in the previous four days combined. They weren’t able to start processing those ballots until after polls had closed.

Florida, however, ends early in-person voting three days before the election and doesn’t allow mail-in ballots to be dropped off at voting precincts on Election Day — though voters can take ballots to their local elections office. Election workers in Florida had three days before Nov. 8 to process and count ballots without the addition of any new in-person early ballots.  

In 19 states, mailed-in ballots that arrive after Election Day will still be counted if they are postmarked on time.

Counting Ballots in Florida

This year there were 5,058,834 early voters in Florida, with the majority being mail-in ballots, according to the U.S. Elections Project. On Election Day, there were 2,725,864 in-person votes cast, according to Florida’s Division of Elections. This would bring the total count to 7,784,698 votes in Florida for the election.

We asked officials how many ballots were counted before Election Day, but we didn’t get a response.

Early voting in Florida for the 2022 election was held from Oct. 29 to Nov. 5. The deadline for voter registration was Oct. 11.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day in Florida. Mail-in ballots must be returned no later than 7 p.m. on Election Day to the Supervisor of Elections Office in order to be counted. Overseas voters have a 10-day extension for general elections.

The counting of early votes and mail-in ballots can begin in Florida after the public testing of automatic tabulating equipment — which happens no more than 25 days before early voting starts. This means by the time ballots arrive at precincts, they can be processed and counted. 

The results of all early voting and mail-in ballots that have been counted by the end of the early voting period are uploaded into the county’s election management system by 7 p.m. on the day before the election, according to state law. The results can’t be made public until after the polls close on Election Day. 

Florida law requires that all counted early and mail votes must be reported within 30 minutes of polls closing, and Election Day votes are reported within hours.

County election supervisors are required by law to post the number of mail-in ballots that have been received and the number of mail-in ballots that remain uncounted starting at 7 p.m. on Election Day and to update the count at least once every hour while counting the ballots. 

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Elder, Elise. “DeSantis wins 2022 Florida governor’s race by largest margin in 40 years.” WUFT.org. 8 Nov 2022.

The 2022 Florida Statutes. “ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS – VOTING METHODS AND PROCEDURE.” Leg.state.fl.us. Accessed 16 Nov 2022. 

The 2022 Florida Statutes. “ELECTORS AND ELECTIONS – CONDUCTING ELECTIONS AND ASCERTAINING THE RESULTS.” Leg.state.fl.us. Accessed 16 Nov 2022. 

“Florida 2022 Early Vote.” RPubs. Updated 8 Nov 2022. 

Izaguirre, Anthony. “Ron DeSantis wins governor’s race in Florida.” Associated Press. 8 Nov 2022.

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Ballot Processing Continues in Closely Watched States Amid Unfounded Claims of Fraud.” FactCheck.org. 11 Nov 2022.

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Counting Mail-In Ballots Delays Results, But Doesn’t Denote Fraud.” FactCheck.org. 7 Nov 2022.

National Conference of State Legislatures. “Table 16: When Absentee/Mail Ballot Processing and Counting Can Begin.” NCSL.org. Updated 17 May 2022. 

Florida Divisions of Elections. “Vote-by-Mail Request & Early Voting Statistics.” Accessed 16 Nov 2022. 

The post Posts Misrepresent How Florida Arrived at Quick Election Results appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Quick Take

Close Senate races are underway in some states that have different laws regarding ballot deadlines and tabulation. But some high-profile Republicans — including former President Donald Trump — have suggested, without any evidence, that “they” are trying to “cheat.” Officials in those states say they are simply trying to count every legitimate vote.

Full Story

Tight races in Arizona and Nevada could determine which party controls the Senate, so national attention has focused on the vote counts in those states.

Amid the uncertainty of the outcomes, high-profile Republicans have begun casting doubt on the integrity of those elections.

Former President Donald Trump, who has been posting frequently on his platform, Truth Social, wrote in part, “Clark County, Nevada, has a corrupt voting system… Arizona even said ‘by the end of the week!’ – They want more time to cheat!”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, referring to the vote count in Arizona and Nevada, said on Twitter, “This chaos is an intentional decision by Dems.”

And, similarly, Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, has accused election officials of “slow rolling the results.”

Responding to Lake’s claim, Arizona Assistant Secretary of State Allie Bones said on CNN, “It’s ironic to us that people who are calling, you know, into question the integrity of this election and want faster results don’t understand that it’s actually those processes that add the integrity to our election process.”

Other, similar claims on social media compared Arizona and Nevada with Florida, which has completed most of its vote tabulation.

All three states allow ballot processing and tabulation to begin before Election Day — they are among a minority of states that allow this, as we’ve explained before — and both Arizona and Florida require mail ballots to be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Nevada accepts mail ballots for four days after that, as long as the ballots have been postmarked by Election Day.

So, while there are some broad similarities in the states’ election laws, there are some key differences. We’ll explain the situation in each state.

Arizona

The focus in Arizona has been on Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and accounts for about half the votes in the state.

As of 6 p.m. on Nov. 11, Maricopa had tabulated about 77% of its more than 1.2 million ballots, and the Democratic candidates for governor and Senate hold slim leads. Sen. Mark Kelly leads Republican challenger Blake Masters by about 115,000, while Katie Hobbs is ahead of Lake by nearly 27,000 votes.

Initially, Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which oversees Election Day operations and vote tabulation, had anticipated that 95 to 99% of the ballots would be counted by then.

But he explained at a press conference on Nov. 10 that his estimate had changed because of “wonderful news — the great participation we had on Election Day.”

Arizona law allows for mail ballots to be dropped off at voting locations up to the close of polls on Election Day. This year, voters dropped off more than 290,000 mail ballots on Election Day in Maricopa County.

“That broke the previous record by 70%,” Gates said.

The previous record had been set in the 2020 election, when 172,000 voters had submitted their ballots to polling locations on Election Day, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, whose office oversees early voting, explained at the same press conference.

It’s worth noting that both officials in charge of elections in the county — Gates and Richer — are Republicans.

On the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before Election Day, officials received about 86,000 ballots, Richer said. On Monday, they received about 52,000. All of those ballots were processed, signature verified, and delivered to the board of supervisors for tabulation.

Then, as we said, on Tuesday officials received about 292,000 ballots.

So, election workers had received more than twice as many ballots in one day as they had received in the previous four days combined, and they couldn’t start the process of checking signatures and taking the ballots out of their envelopes until the polls had closed.

“We can’t begin this process any earlier because those ballots are dropped off at the voting location, they’re sealed in their envelopes, we pick them up at the end of the night after all voters have left all the polls,” Richer said. “We spent the night organizing them and then getting them ready for that scanning process.”

That contrasts with the law in Florida, which ends early voting on the third day before the election. So, election workers there had three days before Election Day to process and tabulate ballots without new early in-person votes coming in. Florida also doesn’t allow for mail ballot drop-off at voting precincts on Election Day, though voters can drop their ballots that day at their local elections office.

Also, Florida didn’t have a close election this year.

Republican incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis won his seat with 59% of the vote and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio won reelection with 58% of the vote.

“Those other states like Florida? Those races were blow-outs,” Gates said. “Nobody’s paying attention anymore.”

That hasn’t always been the case, though. When DeSantis first sought the governor’s office in 2018, the races for governor and U.S. Senate were so close that the outcomes weren’t clear for days afterward and, predictably, there were allegations of fraud along the way.

Nevada

Similar to the case in Arizona, most attention in Nevada has focused on the most populous county in Nevada, which includes Las Vegas — Clark County.

That county’s registrar of voters, Joe Gloria, responded directly to the claim in Trump’s social media post. At a press conference on Nov. 10, Gloria said, “Obviously he’s misinformed — two years later — about the law and our election processes, which ensure the integrity of elections in Clark County and the state. We couldn’t go any faster now even if we wanted to.”

The county posted a written response on Twitter.

At the press conference, Gloria emphasized that the timing for counting ballots is determined largely by state law.

“It’s the elephant in the room that I keep trying to communicate — there are statutory deadlines here that prevent me from finishing any earlier than the general public or you, the media, would like to see us work,” he said.

State law required election officials to accept mail ballots through the fourth day after Election Day — Saturday — as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. So Clark County is still accepting mail ballots.

That’s the most significant factor when comparing ballot tabulation in Nevada with a state such as Florida.

Additionally, voters who had been notified that their signatures on their ballots didn’t match the ones on file with the state have through Monday to fix the problem and have their ballots counted.

“And then, finally,” Gloria said, “we have provisional ballots that we cannot process until we’ve sent all of the information up to the secretary of state, who then compiles a report with all 17 counties so that we can identify any duplicates or somebody who has illegally voted in more than one county, which is something that we certainly want to prevent to uphold the integrity of our process.”

It’s also worth noting that expanded access to voting by mail is new in Nevada. The state adopted a permanent vote-by-mail system in 2021.

“We want to make sure we’re being accurate in validating the signatures and the identity of these folks,” Gloria said at the press conference. “That’s a lot of work that’s involved in reviewing — It’s a lot of work to go through in reviewing those signatures. So we’re moving at a pace that I think is a good pace for the amount of equipment and staff that we have on board.”

So, none of the claims suggesting that there’s fraud in Arizona or Nevada has included any evidence. And all the evidence points to the fact that election officials in states with closely watched races are following the law of their respective states and counting all valid ballots.

Correction, Nov. 19: We made clear that mail ballots are accepted in Florida up to and including Election Day, though on Election Day, voters can only drop off mail ballots at local elections offices, not voting precincts. Our story originally wasn’t clear on this point. 

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Reid, Tim and Richard Cowan. “A nation waits: U.S. election workers toil to count thousands of votes.” Reuters. 11 Nov 2022.

National Conference of State Legislatures. Table 16: When Absentee/Mail Ballot Processing and Counting Can Begin. 17 May 2022.

Hale Spencer, Saranac. “Counting Mail-In Ballots Delays Results, But Doesn’t Denote Fraud.” FactCheck.org. 7 Nov 2022.

National Conference of State Legislatures. Table 11: Receipt and Postmark Deadlines for Absentee/Mail Ballots. 12 Jul 2022.

Arizona Secretary of State. 2022 General Election Ballot Progress. Accessed 11 Nov 2022.

Maricopa County. Election Update November 10, 2022. YouTube. 10 Nov 2022.

Citizens Clean Elections Commission. Arizona’s Ballot By Mail System. Accessed 11 Nov 2022.

Florida Department of State Division of Elections. Early Voting and Secure Ballot Intake Stations. Updated 19 Oct 2022.

Florida Department of State Division of Elections. Florida Election Watch — Governor. Accessed 11 Nov 2022.

Dixon, Matt. “After Scott requested investigation, law enforcement says no voter fraud allegations found.” Politico. Updated 9 Nov 2018.

Clark County Nevada (@ClarkCountyNV). “Clark County Election Update.” Twitter. 10 Nov 2022.

Clark County Nevada (@ClarkCountyNV). “Our response to former President Donald Trump’s recent comments about the elections process in Clark County, Nevada.” Twitter. 10 Nov 2022.

Sisolak, Steve. Governor, Nevada. Press release. “Governor Sisolak signs groundbreaking legislation to expand voting access in Nevada, increase education funding.” 2 Jun 2021.

The post Ballot Processing Continues in Closely Watched States Amid Unfounded Claims of Fraud appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Former President Donald Trump claimed he “sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys” to Broward County during the 2018 election to stop “ballot theft” and help Ron DeSantis become Florida’s governor. But a spokesman for the county elections office said there was no “federal law enforcement presence” for that election.

“The Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office has no documentation of any federal law enforcement presence during the 2018 elections,” Ivan Castro, a spokesperson for the county supervisor of elections, told us in an email. “Also, to clarify, there is no evidence of corruption during the 2018 election cycle in Broward County.”

The former president made his claim in a rambling statement released Nov. 10 that criticized Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the man he called “Governor Ron DeSanctimonious.” It comes at a time when DeSantis, who handily won reelection on Nov. 8, has emerged as a threat to Trump’s plans to run for president in 2024.

In the statement, the president made the baseless allegation that he stopped election fraud in Broward County, helping DeSantis defeat Andrew Gillum in the 2018 governor’s race and Rick Scott beat Sen. Bill Nelson in the state’s Senate race.

“I was all in for Ron, and he beat Gillum, but after the Race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt Election process in Broward County, and Ron was going down ten thousand votes a day, along with now-Senator Rick Scott, I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win,” Trump wrote. “I stopped his Election from being stolen.”

In 2018, DeSantis was declared the winner by the Associated Press on election night, which was Nov. 6, 2018. Gillum conceded defeat at about 11 p.m. that night, according to the New York Times. But with votes still being counted, Gillum closed the gap and the race was within the range of a recount by Nov. 8, 2018.

The Senate race was even closer, and neither side conceded defeat. It wasn’t until the statewide recount was completed on Nov. 18 that Nelson conceded defeat. A day earlier, Gillum admitted defeat for a second time.

During this time, Trump made numerous unfounded allegations about election fraud in Broward County — which BuzzFeed said “echoed the conspiratorial thinking of falsehoods that spread online.”

BuzzFeed, Nov. 12, 2018: Since Thursday, Trump sent seven tweets about the election, baselessly making claims like, “Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida!” and “Rick Scott was up by 50,000+ votes on Election Day, now they ‘found’ many votes and he is only up 15,000 votes.” Although most of his tweets focused on Broward County in Florida, they echoed the conspiratorial thinking of falsehoods that spread online.

In a Nov. 11, 2018, interview, Scott, who was governor at the time, accused his Democratic opponent of “clearly trying to commit fraud to win this election.” Scott’s campaign filed a lawsuit that same day to “impound and secure” Broward County’s voting machines. But a county judge rejected the governor’s lawsuit, citing no evidence of fraud.

“I don’t think I have any evidence to enter a mandatory injunction right now,” Judge Jack Tuter said, according to a Nov. 12, 2018, BuzzFeed article. “If someone in this county has evidence of fraud or irregularities, they should report it to a law enforcement office.”

The judge suggested a compromise, however. He proposed stationing three county sheriff’s deputies at the county election headquarters to monitor the counting of ballots. The lawyers involved in the case agreed on a plan for “one deputy to monitor security cameras, another to watch a storage room with election data and ballots, and a third deputy to supervise them,” BuzzFeed wrote.

The baseless claims of election fraud in Broward County resulted in days of organized protests at a county elections office in Lauderhill, Florida. In a recent story, the Sun-Sentinel recalled what it was like when a “crowd of Donald Trump-supporting protesters converged that year on an elections office in Lauderhill.”

“Over several days, as ballots were tallied, they shouted about ‘corruption’ and of attempts to ‘steal the vote,'” the Sun-Sentinel wrote. “Dozens of police officers showed up to ‘protect the ballots at all costs.'”

The New York Times reported earlier this month that the Department of Justice is now “examining whether the tactics used” during the Florida protests in 2018 “served as a model for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.”

In particular, federal investigators are reviewing the role of Jacob Engels, whom the paper described as “a Florida Proud Boy who accompanied” Trump adviser Roger Stone to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, for the former president’s “Save America” rally, which turned violent when Trump supporters assaulted law enforcement officers and took control of the Capitol.

In the aftermath of the 2018 election, county Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes resigned amid allegations that her office mismanaged the 2016 election. She submitted her resignation letter to the governor on Nov. 18, 2018, the same day that the recount was completed and Nelson conceded defeat.

In April 2020, Broward County Auditor Robert Melton issued a 79-page report that concluded the 2018 election was “not efficiently and effectively conducted.” However, the audit does not mention the involvement of federal investigators and did not allege that any of the problems cited in the report amounted to election fraud.

In fact, the Tampa Bay Times reported that multiple reviews of the 2018 election failed to find any evidence of election fraud in Broward County.

“The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, run by a Scott appointee, investigated and determined there was no evidence of voter fraud. In Broward, another Scott appointee conducted a post-mortem of the office’s handling of the 2018 elections and likewise found no proof of fraud,” the paper wrote in a Sept. 30, 2020, article. “A Broward county audit came to a similar conclusion, determining that poor management — including the failure to process nearly 50,000 mail ballots that arrived before Election Day — led to problems experienced during the 2018 election and recount.”

So, there is no evidence to support Trump’s claim that “votes were being stolen” from DeSantis in Broward County or that Trump dispatched federal agents to the county and stopped DeSantis’ “Election from being stolen.”

Update, Nov. 15: John F. Kelly, who was Trump’s chief of staff during the 2018 election, told the New York Times that Trump never asked the Justice Department or FBI to intervene in the election to help DeSantis. “If he had, Mr. Kelly said, it would have been an improper use of the Justice Department and the F.B.I.,” the Times reported in a Nov. 13 article.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

The post FactChecking Trump’s Bizarre Claim of Stopping DeSantis’ 2018 Election ‘From Being Stolen’ appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Quick Take

Tabulating machines at some polling locations in Maricopa County, Arizona, couldn’t process ballots during part of Election Day, though affected voters could leave their ballots in a secure box or go elsewhere to vote. But some conservatives, including former President Donald Trump, made the unfounded claim that the setback indicated an attempt to “steal” the election.

Full Story

Printers in Maricopa County, Arizona, produced ballots that were too light for scanners to read at some polling locations for part of the day on Election Day, according to the Maricopa County Elections Department.

Election workers identified the problem and began fixing it by mid-afternoon, the elections department said in a post on Twitter. Tabulators at approximately 60 of the county’s more than 200 polling locations were affected.

Throughout the day, election officials advised that voters could leave their ballot in a secure box to be tabulated later, or they could check out of the polling location and cast a ballot at a different location.

Arizona’s elections have drawn national attention in this midterm cycle in part because a slate of election deniers were on the ballot for statewide office — including the Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, who started casting doubt on this year’s election as ballots were being counted in her close race. Arizona also had one of the tight races that could determine control of the Senate, between Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat, and Republican Blake Masters.

So it wasn’t surprising that conservative commentators with large followings on social media used the ballot situation to stoke anxiety about the integrity of the election.

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was among the first to do so, according to a graph compiled by researchers at the University of Washington that charted the rise of claims about the Maricopa situation.

One of Kirk’s tweets claimed: “2 hour wait minimum at most polling places in Maricopa. Democrats running elections here knew this would happen. Traffic jam by design. DONT LET THEM DO 2020 AGAIN.”

The county responded, sharing a screenshot of Kirk’s tweet with a post that said, “No part of the tweet below is accurate. The vast majority of Vote Centers are seeing wait times under 30 minutes, and whether by tabulator or secure ballot box, all voters are being served.” The county included a link to its election website, where voters could find information on polling places and wait times.

It’s also worth noting that elections in Maricopa County, contrary to Kirk’s claim, are run by a Republican-controlled board of supervisors and recorder’s office. Four of the five members of the board of supervisors, including the board chairman, are Republicans, as is the Maricopa County recorder.

So, there weren’t long lines at most polling locations, and the officials in charge of the election were almost exclusively Republican.

Still, others — including Donald Trump Jr. and commentator Candace Owens — amplified similar suggestions over the course of the afternoon, according to the University of Washington graph.

Former President Donald Trump, who has frequently spread election misinformation, made suggestive claims on his own social media platform. He claimed “they” — without identifying anyone — were trying to “steal” the election.

But from the time that the county posted a video of elections officials reporting the problem in the morning, it appeared to be an issue affecting a minority of locations and the county offered remedies for any voter who was affected.

Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County Recorder, reassured voters in a statement, saying: “Every legal vote will be tabulated. I promise.”

So, the combination of closely watched races with a malfunction in the election machinery was a recipe for widespread conspiratorial claims. Other largely innocuous glitches in election machines have led to similar claims elsewhere, including Detroit, where election officials explained that they had resolved a “harmless data error” that had caused confusion at some polling locations. As we have written, Trump had made misleading claims about that city, too.

Update, Nov. 29: Maricopa County issued a report on Nov. 27 that offered more details on the issue with its printers, although the county’s root-cause analysis is still underway. The report found that 43 of the county’s 223 vote centers had been confirmed to have had a printer-related issue on Election Day – that’s 19%. But, the report explained, other voting options meant that “every voter was afforded the ability to legally and securely cast their ballot.” Voters who encountered problems had the option to deposit their ballots in a secure box to be tabulated later. The report said 16,724 ballots, or 1% of the total ballots issued by the county, were put in secure boxes.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Maricopa County (@maricopacounty). “.@maricopavote has identified the solution for the tabulation issues at about 60 Vote Centers. County technicians have changed the printer settings, which seems to have resolved this issue. It appears some of the printers were not producing dark enough timing marks on ballots.” 1/3. Twitter. 8 Nov 2022.

Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote). “Maricopa County has identified the solution for the tabulation issues at about 60 Vote Centers. This solution has worked at 17 locations, and technicians deployed throughout the county are working to resolve this issue at the remaining locations.” Twitter. 8 Nov 2022.

Maricopa County Elections Department. Where to vote — voting locations & drop boxes. Accessed 8 Nov 2022.

Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote). “Advice for Voters: If a tabulator is not working at a site, you can still vote! You have the option to cast your ballot and place it into the secure ballot box. The poll workers on site at the voting location are best equipped to help you ensure your ballot cast.” Twitter. 8 Nov 2022.

Starbird, Kate (@katestarbird). “Interactive graph tracking discourse re: voting issues in Maricopa County, incl. legitimate concerns, motivated criticism, directives for how to make sure votes are counted, and some false claims (of intentionality). We’ll keep watching as this evolves.” Twitter. 8 Nov 2022.

Gore, D’Angelo, et al. “Trump Repeats Baseless, False Claims About the Election.” FactCheck.org. Updated 1 Dec 2020.

Gore, D’Angelo, et al. “Debunking Trump’s Latest Arizona Election Claims.” FactCheck.org. 20 Jul 2021.

Sanderson, Zeve, et al. “Twitter flagged Donald Trump’s tweets with election misinformation: They continued to spread both on and off the platform.” Misinformation Review. 24 Aug 2021.

Farley, Robert. “Trump’s Bogus Voter Fraud Claims.” FactCheck.org. 19 Oct 2016.

Kiely, Eugene and Rem Rieder. “Trump’s Claims on IG, Wisconsin Election.” FactCheck.org. 8 Apr 2020.

Kiely, Eugene and Rem Rieder. “Trump’s Repeated False Attacks on Mail-In Ballots.” FactCheck.org. 25 Sep 2020.

Richer, Stephen (@stephen_richer). “STATEMENT.” Twitter. 8 Nov 2022.

Kiely, Eugene. “‘Harmless Data Error’ to Blame for Glitch at Some Detroit Polling Places, Contrary to Trump’s Post.” FactCheck.org. 8 Nov 2022.

The post Ballot Printer Delayed Maricopa Voting, Contrary to Unfounded Claims appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Quick Take

Mail-in ballots have become a popular way to vote in the U.S. But the unfounded claim persists that mail ballots lead to rampant fraud and, if counted after Election Day, they are suspect. By law, many states don’t start counting mail ballots until after polls close, and some continue to accept them for days after Election Day if they are postmarked by that date.

Full Story

A claim that seems to contradict itself — that counting all ballots will result in election fraud — was widespread in 2020 and has resurfaced ahead of this year’s midterms.

Former President Donald Trump made the claim multiple times prior to the 2020 election, alleging that mail-in ballots tabulated after Election Day were suspect and that courts should stop states from counting them. We wrote about it at the time, explaining that many states accept ballots after Election Day if they are postmarked by that date and most states aren’t legally allowed to start counting mail-in ballots until Election Day. So it’s routine to get the results after Election Day.

Nevertheless, the claim has lingered among election deniers and has had a mainstream resurgence recently.

For example, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson — who hosts one of the most watched cable news shows, according to Nielsen — played a clip from President Joe Biden’s Nov. 2 speech on democracy and elections, in which the president noted the popularity of voting by mail.

“We know that more and more ballots are cast in early voting or by mail in America,” Biden had said. “And we know that many states don’t start counting those ballots until after the polls close on Nov. 8.”

“That means, in some cases, we won’t know the winner of the election for a few days — until after a few days after the election,” he said. “It takes time to count all legitimate ballots in a legal and orderly manner.”

But Carlson, looking incredulous, framed Biden’s remarks this way: “Here’s Joe Biden telling you that, thanks to the changes, the many changes, Democrats have made to our system of voting — all of which make voter fraud easier to commit — we may not know the results of the elections for a few days. But don’t be alarmed. Everything is completely on the level. And whatever you do, do not ask questions or else you’re a criminal.”

On Twitter, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — who had challenged Trump in 2016, but later became an ally — posted a suggestive version of the claim, inaccurately saying: “Why is it only Democrat blue cities that take ‘days’ to count their votes? The rest of the country manages to get it done on election night.”

And a popular conservative Twitter account posted a similarly suggestive version of the claim: “Funny how we could easily count every vote in every state on election night until a few years ago.”

False claims and conspiracy theories — particularly those aimed at the integrity of U.S. elections — have been bouncing around in partisan echo chambers for at least two years. So, many of the most common claims — like this one — are now familiar enough to the target audience that those who push them don’t have to be explicit; they just have to make a suggestive reference to get the point across.

But at least one conservative commentator on Facebook is still spelling it out. Lars Larson, whom we’ve written about before, wrote in a lengthy post on the topic that counting ballots and reporting the results after Election Day is “how you cheat when your party is about to lose a major election.”

Like the others, Larson questioned why the vote count couldn’t be completed on election night, saying, “A hundred years ago, America with no special technology or computers managed to get national elections counted the same day. In fact, prior to 2020, almost all elections produced a result on election night.”

The problem with all of these posts is that they misrepresent the process and falsely suggest that there is something untrustworthy or nefarious about tabulating mail-in ballots after Election Day.

What Counts and When

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 39 states don’t allow counting to start until Election Day. Of those, 16 states don’t allow counting to start until the polls close.

And, according to the NCSL, 19 states accept and count mailed ballots after Election Day as long as they are postmarked on or before that date.

Contrary to Cruz’s claim that “only Democrat blue cities” take “‘days’ to count their votes,” states that traditionally vote Republican — such as Alaska and Mississippi — are among those that don’t allow tabulation to start until polls close on Election Day. Both states also accept mailed ballots that arrive days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked on time.

It is true, though, that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail than Republicans, which can lead to the so-called “red mirage” on election night — meaning that early results based primarily on in-person voting may favor Republicans before mail-in ballots potentially favoring Democrats are counted and reported.

Regardless of party affiliation, though, it’s reasonable to expect that the outcome wouldn’t be available until after election night if mail-in ballot tabulation doesn’t begin until then and if appropriately postmarked ballots continue to be accepted after Election Day. The winner of the presidential race in Alaska wasn’t called by the Associated Press in 2020 until Nov. 11, eight days after the election.

Another important factor is the increasing demand for mail-in voting.

Voters’ use of mail-in ballots has grown steadily since the early 1990s, according to a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Election Data + Science Lab.

By 2018, which was a midterm-election year, mail-in ballots made up more than 25% of total voter turnout, according to a report from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Not surprisingly, the demand sharply increased in the 2020 election, which was held in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic before vaccines had become available. In 2020, 43% of voters cast their ballots by mail, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s report on that election.

Requests for mail-in ballots this year remain high, but not as high as 2020.

For example, 1.4 million voters have requested mail-in ballots for the 2022 election in Pennsylvania. That compares with 3 million who did so in 2020. (Pennsylvania is a key state that could determine control of the Senate next year. Republican Sen. Pat Toomey chose not to run for another term, leaving a close race between Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican.)

The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that results from this year’s election shouldn’t take as long as they did in 2020. The newspaper predicted that most votes will be reported on election night, with the “vast majority” being counted by midday on Wednesday.

That contrasts with 2020, when the results weren’t clear until the Saturday following Election Day.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, like others, had recommended changing the law to allow counties to start opening ballot envelopes to prepare them for counting before Election Day in order to cut down on the amount of time taken for tabulation.

But the Democratic governor and Republican-controlled Legislature couldn’t agree on implementing changes.

Mail-In Voting Safeguards

The fact is, mail-in ballots — like other forms of voting — are largely secure, and there is scant evidence of fraud.

Dozens of studies and analyses over the years have found that illegal voting is extremely rare and, notably, Trump’s own commission to study election fraud — which he disbanded before it produced a report — found no evidence of significant fraud. Matthew Dunlap, who was the Democratic secretary of state in Maine and served on the commission, wrote in a letter to then-Vice President Mike Pence, who chaired the commission, and Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who co-chaired it, that the sections on evidence of voter fraud in a draft report were “glaringly empty.”

Since the 2020 election, public officials have made similar statements about the lack of evidence to support claims of fraud in that election.

For example, former Attorney General Bill Barr, who was appointed by Trump, said in the weeks after the election that there was no evidence of fraud on a scale that would have affected the outcome.

More recently, during an interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, Barr reiterated that point and laughed off claims made in a video promoted by Trump called “2000 Mules,” which focuses on mail ballots to make the unsupported claim that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Various security measures ensure the integrity of mail-in ballots across the states, according to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency, a government agency that put together an overview of those measures, which include:

• Requiring a signature and affirmation of a voter’s eligibility to cast a ballot under penalty of law. When voters request a ballot, election officials check the signature and other identifying information, as well as check to make sure that multiple ballots are not sent in response to applications made in the same voter’s name.
• Requiring a signature on the returned ballot envelope. Some states even require a notarized signature, the signature of a witness or witnesses, or a copy of valid identification. When the ballot is returned, election officials verify the signature and any other required information before submitting the ballot for counting.
• In cases where a voter shows up to the polls and is on record as having requested a mail-in ballot, state policies vary. “In most states, the voter would be required to cast a provisional ballot that could be later reviewed by election officials,” according to CISA. “In others, the voter may cast a regular ballot and any corresponding mail-in/absentee ballot returned in the name of that voter would be rejected. In all such cases, instances of potential double voting or voter impersonation could be directed to appropriate authorities for investigation.”

So, all the evidence shows that voting by mail is common and secure and — given the rules under which states have to count those ballots — it’s reasonable for counting to continue after Election Day.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Kiely, Eugene. “Nothing Untoward About Counting Ballots After Election Day.” FactCheck.org. 29 Oct 2020.

Biden, Joe. “Remarks by President Biden on Standing up for Democracy.” Whitehouse.gov. 2 Nov 2022.

Cruz, Ted (@tedcruz). “Why is it only Democrat blue cities that take ‘days’ to count their votes? The rest of the country manages to get it done on election night.” Twitter. 27 Oct 2022.

Gore, D’Angelo. “Washington GOP House Candidates Attack Each Other on Social Security.” FactCheck.org. 26 Jul 2022.

Jackson, Brooks. “Reid, Angle Trade Familiar Charges.” FactCheck.org. 27 Aug 2010.

National Conference of State Legislatures. Table 16: When Absentee/Mail Ballot Processing and Counting Can Begin. Updated 17 May 2022.

Curiel, John, Charles Stewart III and Jack Williams. “One Shift, Two Shifts, Red Shift, Blue Shift: Reported Election Returns in the 2020 Election.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology Election Data and Science Lab. 9 Jul 2021.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Election Data and Science Lab. “Voting by mail and absentee voting.” Updated 16 Mar 2021.

Williams, Nichelle. Vote by Mail Trends and Turnout in Six Election Cycles: 2008-2018. U.S. Election Assistance Commission. 22 Oct 2020.

Election Assistance Commission. Election Administration and Voting Survey 2020 Comprehensive Report. Accessed 7 Nov 2022.

Corasaniti, Nick. “Voters Stick to Pandemic-Era Habits, as Early Turnout Surges.” New York Times. 22 Oct 2022.

Lai, Jonathan. “How long will it take to get Pa. election results? Here’s what you need to know.” Philadelphia Inquirer. 3 Nov 2022.

Pennsylvania Department of State. Pennsylvania 2020 Primary Election Act 35 of 2020 Report. 1 Aug 2020.

Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. Resources on Voter Fraud Claims — Credible research and investigation demonstrates fraud by voters at the polls is exceedingly rare. 26 Jun 2017.

Williams, Joseph. “Trump Panel Finds No Voter Fraud.” U.S. News & World Report. 10 Jan 2018.

Dunlap, Matthew. Secretary of State, Maine. Letter to Vice President Pence and Secretary Kobach. 3 Aug 2018.

Balsamo, Michael. “Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud.” Associated Press. 28 Jun 2022.

C-SPAN. “Former Attorney General Bill Barr Testimony Before January 6th Committee.” YouTube. 13 Jun 2022.

Farley, Robert. “Evidence Gaps in ‘2000 Mules.’” FactCheck.org. Updated 13 Jun 2022.

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency. “Reality: Safeguards protect the integrity of the mail-in/absentee ballot process, including relating to the use of mail-in/absentee ballot request forms.” Accessed 4 Nov. 2022.

The post Counting Mail-In Ballots Delays Results, But Doesn’t Denote Fraud appeared first on FactCheck.org.

]]> https://www.factcheck.org/2022/11/what-republican-officials-have-said-about-the-violent-attack-on-paul-pelosi/ Thu, 03 Nov 2022 19:52:24 +0000 https://www.factcheck.org/?p=224964 Many Republicans have condemned or spoken out against the violent assault on Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 82-year-old husband, who was knocked unconscious by an intruder at the couple's San Francisco home the morning of Oct. 28. 

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Many Republicans have condemned or spoken out against the violent assault on Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband, who was knocked unconscious by an intruder at the couple’s San Francisco home the morning of Oct. 28. 

Local police identified the attacker as David DePape, 42, of Richmond, California. Law enforcement say he broke into the house, armed with a hammer, looking for the Democratic congresswoman, who was not in the city at the time.

However, while speaking at a Nov. 1 campaign event for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida, President Joe Biden said that “nobody on that party,” meaning Republicans, “condemns” the attack on Paul Pelosi “for exactly what it is.”

Biden appeared to be reiterating a point he made a few days earlier about a perceived reluctance by Republican lawmakers and officials to push back on conspiracy theories espoused by some members of their party — theories that news reports suggest may have motivated the attack.

The White House pointed to Biden’s Oct. 29 remarks to reporters, in which he said: “And the generic point I want to make is that, you know, it’s one thing to condemn the violence. But you can’t condemn the violence unless you condemn those people who continue to argue the election was not real, that it’s being stolen … all the malarkey that’s being put out there to undermine democracy.”

“The talk has to stop,” he continued to say. “That’s the problem. That’s the problem. You can’t just say, ‘I feel badly about the violence; we condemn it.’ Condemn what produces the violence, and this talk produces the violence.”

Prior to the attack, DePape is believed to have written online posts repeating theories about fraud in the 2020 election and other conspiracies. For example, the Associated Press reported that in September, someone writing under the name David DePape said that journalists “should be dragged straight out into the street and shot” if they challenged former President Donald Trump’s false claims about his 2020 election loss.

According to the federal criminal complaint, DePape told officers that he entered the home intending to “hold Nancy hostage” unless she was honest with him. 

“If Nancy were to tell DePape the ‘truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied,’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps,'” the complaint alleges. “DePape was certain that Nancy would not have told the ‘truth.'”

A court filing by local prosecutors revealed that authorities at the scene of the attack said that DePape also told them that he had additional targets, including a local professor and other federal and state politicians and their relatives.

We review what some Republicans have — and have not — said about the assault.

Condemning the Attack

We found several examples of Republicans, including members of GOP leadership, taking to Twitter to condemn the attack, specifically, or politically motivated violence, generally.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky wrote:

Horrified and disgusted by the reports that Paul Pelosi was assaulted in his and Speaker Pelosi's home last night. Grateful to hear that Paul is on track to make a full recovery and that law enforcement including our stellar Capitol Police are on the case.

— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) October 28, 2022

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate Republican whip, wrote:

Today’s attack on Paul Pelosi is unconscionable. Praying for his speedy recovery.

— Senator John Thune (@SenJohnThune) October 28, 2022

Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House minority whip, wrote:

Disgusted to hear about the horrific assault on Speaker Pelosi’s husband Paul. Grateful for law enforcement’s actions to respond.

Let’s be clear: Violence has no place in this country. I’m praying for Paul Pelosi’s full recovery.

— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) October 28, 2022

In 2017, a gunman opened fire on congressional Republicans practicing for a charity baseball game, shooting five people, including Scalise, who was hospitalized and underwent several surgeries.

Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the House Republican Conference chair, wrote:

Wishing a full recovery for Paul from this absolutely horrific violent attack.

This criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Grateful to law enforcement for their important work.

— Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) October 28, 2022

Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, wrote:

The attack on Paul Pelosi last night is terrible.

This type of violence is unacceptable and we condemn it fully.

I am thankful to hear he will make a full recovery and for the police who arrested the attacker.

— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) October 28, 2022

And former Vice President Mike Pence wrote:

This is an outrage and our hearts are with the entire Pelosi family. ⁦We pray Paul will make a full recovery. There can be no tolerance for violence against public officials or their families. This man should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law https://t.co/3mJ8xmGmbT

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) October 28, 2022

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy commented on the attack in an Oct. 30 Fox News interview.

After host Maria Bartiromo brought up crime and said that “people are afraid to go outside their house,” she asked if McCarthy had an update on Paul Pelosi, who underwent surgery for a fractured skull.

He responded: “Well, let me be perfectly clear. Violence or threat of violence has no place in our society. And what happened to Paul Pelosi is wrong.”

McCarthy said that he spoke to the House speaker, conveyed that his “thoughts and prayers” were with the family, wished her husband a “speedy recovery,” and said he hoped “we’re able to stop this crime across our country.”

Republicans have made nationwide crime a major theme of the midterm election.

Condemning the Rhetoric

We did not find nearly the same number of tweets condemning the kind of hyperpartisan and conspiracy-based rhetoric that may have influenced DePape to target Nancy Pelosi and others.

One Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a member of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, wrote:

This morning’s terrifying attack on Paul Pelosi by a man obsessed with election conspiracies is a dangerous reality encouraged by some members of my own party.

I’m thankful he will be okay.

This must be condemned by every Member of Congress & candidate. Now. @SpeakerPelosi

— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) October 28, 2022

Kinzinger expanded on his comments in a CNN interview the same day.

“I mean, obviously, this is somebody that has been convinced, you know, I think even without having to do much research, he has been convinced that the election was stolen, that there is a cabal of people running the government, that it’s not government for or by the people, as he has been convinced,” he said of DePape. “This is what happens when you convince a third of the country that the election was stolen and that the other side is an enemy. You other-ize people. You convince folks that your political opposition is out to get you and your family.”

Kinzinger said he was not hopeful that the attack would be “universally condemned” by members of his party – noting that some conservatives had already parroted false claims about the incident.

Trump, who called the attack a “sad situation” and a “terrible thing,” is one prominent Republican who has repeated baseless speculation about what happened at the Pelosis’ home.

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, another Republican on the Jan. 6 committee, called it “disgraceful” that some members of her party, and members of Trump’s family, mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi.

“The violence at the Capitol on January 6 was a direct result of Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen,” Cheney said in a Nov. 1 interview on PBS’ NewsHour. “And those claims — he continues to make those claims to this day. Others continue to make those claims to this day. And we know — it’s entirely foreseeable that those will lead to violence.”

She also said Democrats and Republicans demonizing one another “has to stop.”

“I think that, when you see what is happening in our country, when you watch the extent to which political violence — or violence has become part of political discourse, that is a — that’s a road we just can’t go down,” she said.

Other Republicans have resisted calling out members of their party.

In an Oct. 30 interview, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Sen. Rick Scott, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, if Republicans need to “do more to reject conspiracy theories and dangerous rhetoric.” Instead of answering the question, he talked about increasing confidence in U.S. elections.

“I think what we have to do is, one, we have to condemn the violence, and then we have to do everything we can to get people — make sure people feel comfortable about these elections,” Scott said. “We have got to do everything we can to get people comfortable that this election in nine days is going to be free and fair. That people’s votes are all going to be counted fairly, they’re not going to be diluted.”

At least one other Republican, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, has said that both Republicans and Democrats should be more mindful of the things they say.

“Well, I think that people in both parties should tone down the rhetoric,” Comer told CNN’s Pamela Brown, who asked him in an Oct. 29 interview whether his colleagues should “tone down the rhetoric here and also bat away some of these conspiracies that this attacker was apparently talking about online.”

“It’s a terrible environment,” Comer said. “And I believe people in both parties are guilty of intense rhetoric that really leads to, you know, feed into these people who are deranged and create violence. It’s the same thing that happened with the shooter that shot at Steve Scalise and several of the Republican colleagues.”

Comer continued: “Violence is wrong. These people need to be put in jail for the rest of their life. And you know, we need to try to do better in both parties. Myself included.”

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