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2024 Elections Misinformation Tracking Center

Our team of analysts will keep you up to date as we cover misinformation surrounding this year’s elections in the U.S., EU, and elsewhere around the world

By Chiara Vercellone, Sam Howard, McKenzie Sadeghi, Macrina Wang, Coalter Palmer, Leonie Pfaller, Eva Maitland and Becca Schimmel| Last updated June 17, 2024

 

NewsGuard is monitoring the spread of misinformation this year as voters in the U.S., the European Union, and other countries around the world head to the polls to choose their elected leaders. To date, NewsGuard’s global team of misinformation analysts have identified 49 myths spreading across social media, and identified 129 sites spreading those myths.

In the weeks immediately after the 2020 U.S. election, we identified 166 sites spreading voting misinformation, and we have found that some of these false claims are still circulating even three years later. We have identified similarly baseless allegations of voter fraud — about mail-in voting, election machines, and vote-counting, among other topics — in national elections including in France, Germany, and Italy, and again in the U.S. during its 2022 midterms.

As new or recycled false claims emerge this year, we will regularly update this page to reflect the latest myths and trends. And to go deeper, subscribe to our Media Intelligence Dashboard or sign up for our free newsletter Reality Check.

Monitoring Election Misinformation Sources:

To detect new and emerging false claims, NewsGuard’s team monitors publishers that our analysts have determined have a history of repeatedly publishing false or egregiously misleading claims related to elections. To date, our database tracks: 

  • 963 websites flagged for repeatedly publishing false or egregiously misleading claims about elections
  • 793 social media accounts and video channels associated with publishers flagged for repeatedly publishing false or egregiously misleading claims about elections
  • 1,265 partisan sites masquerading as politically neutral local news outlets; many of these sites are secretly funded by political organizations without clear disclosure to readers, and adopt innocuous names like “The Philadelphia Leader” or “The Copper Courier.” See NewsGuard’s Nutrition Labels for some of these networks, including States Newsroom, Courier Newsroom, Metric Media, and a Russian disinformation network

Below is a selection of election misinformation trends identified by NewsGuard in its Reality Check newsletter and in confidential briefings for NewsGuard clients:

No, the Biden Administration Is Not Secretly Flying Migrants to the U.S. as Voters

Conservative commentators, websites, and X users with thousands of followers falsely claimed that the Biden administration last year secretly flew over 300,000 undocumented migrants from Latin America into 43 airports across the U.S., as part of an election-fraud scheme.

“This is categorically false,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a March 6, 2024, X post, in response to claims that the Biden administration is secretly flying migrants to the U.S.

It is true that thousands of migrants have traveled to the U.S. under the “Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans” program that was launched by the Biden administration in October 2022 to accommodate Venezuelan migrants who are escaping economic collapse or political oppression. The program was expanded in January 2023 to include migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti.

The existence of the program is not secret, though the administration has not disclosed the locations of where the migrants have arrived. The government regularly issues public updates on the total number of migrants allowed into the U.S. under the program without disclosing where. About 350,000 migrants had entered the U.S. under the program between October 2022 and January 2024, according to the most recent federal data available in March 2024. 

Participants pay for their own airfare and enter the country legally under the program, according to White House officials. Moreover, contrary to claims that the program is part of an election fraud scheme, non-citizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections, according to federal law.

Under the program, up to 30,000 migrants may enter the U.S. each month, as long as someone legally living in the U.S. — a family member, friend, or company — files an application with the U.S. government requesting that the migrant be allowed in the country, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website.

If the request is approved, migrants can apply for a travel authorization that will allow them to enter the United States by air within 90 days. Migrants can remain in the U.S. for two years under the program.

NewsGuard’s March 13, 2024, Misinformation Risk Briefing

Iran State Media Falsely Claim Trump Said 9/11 Was ‘Work of the U.S.’ During 2024 Campaign Event

Donald Trump has advanced lots of conspiracy theories, but this isn’t one of them. Iran state media, quickly followed by the Kremlin, misrepresented Trump’s remarks during a campaign victory speech in New Hampshire, falsely claiming he said the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack was an inside job.

Iranian state-run media outlets circulated a video clip with the title “Trump: There was no attack on the World Trade Center towers.” In the text of the article and the subtitles of the video, the Iranian outlets reported that Trump said: “There was no attack on the towers of the World Trade Center,” and “The 9/11 attack was the work of the United States.” 

Actually, at no point in his Jan. 22, 2024, New Hampshire primary victory speech did Trump deny the attacks on the World Trade Center or claim that 9/11 was an inside job.

The clip, taken from Trump’s speech in New Hampshire, shows that Trump said the U.S. did not suffer any deadly terrorist attacks during his time in office, crediting his travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries. 

“When I was [in office] for four years, I wanted to talk so much. We had no terrorism, no attacks, we had nothing, we had the Trump travel ban, we call it the terror ban … I talk about it all the time, we had no attacks, we had no World Trade Center,” Trump said to his audience.

NewsGuard’s Feb. 2, 2024, Reality Check newsletter

Pro-China Commentators Claim Pro-Taiwanese Independence Candidate Is Ineligible

Pro-China social media users claimed that Taiwanese vice presidential candidate Hsiao Bi-khim, whose party staunchly supports Taiwanese independence, could not run in the country’s January 2024 presidential election because she also holds American citizenship.

Hsiao ran on the ticket of presidential frontrunner Lai Ching-te for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which is known for its defiance of Beijing and its stance that Taiwan (also known as the Republic of China) is effectively independent from mainland China. (Hsiao’s ticket ultimately won the election.)

Taiwanese law prohibits political candidates from holding dual citizenship. However, Hsiao, who was born in Japan to a Taiwanese father and an American mother, gave up her U.S. citizenship in 2002, as recorded in a July 2002 notice by the U.S. Federal Register. “First of all, I never gave up my citizenship of the Republic of China [Taiwan] … However, I gave up my American citizenship in 2002, and I have all the relevant supporting documents on hand,” Hsiao said in a Dec. 5, 2023, video on her Facebook page. 

Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior stated on Dec. 4, 2023, that all current presidential candidates and their running mates comply with citizenship requirements.

NewsGuard’s Dec. 7, 2023, State-Sponsored Disinformation Risk Briefing

Below is a selection of false narratives about 2024 elections spreading around the globe that NewsGuard has identified and debunked in its Misinformation Fingerprints catalog:

MYTH: Paper ballots with punched holes or cut corners invalidate German mail-in votes

THE FACTS:

Paper ballots with a punched hole or a cut corner are valid, and do not disqualify the votes of Germans using these ballots in the European Parliament elections in June.

In fact, all ballots in Germany — both for mail-in voting and on-site voting in state, federal, and European parliamentary elections — have either a punched hole or a cut-off corner. These features enable visually impaired people to vote independently, the Agence France-Presse reported.

Visually impaired voters in Germany can request a “ballot paper template,” which helps them read the ballot paper through touch, according to the website of the German government’s Federal Returning Officer. To match the orientation of the template and the actual ballot, both are punched at the top right-hand corner or this corner is cut off.

A punched hole or cut corner is also stipulated by law in Germany’s Federal Election code.

MYTH: A photograph shows UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in front of a sign that says ‘moron’

THE FACTS:

A photo apparently showing Sunak in front of a sign reading ‘moron’ during the UK 2024 general election was digitally altered, and combined two authentic photographs of Sunak standing in front of the logo of the UK supermarket chain Morrisons in May 2024. The original photographs show that while Sunak’s head was blocking some letters in the image, the sign behind him did not read ‘moron.’

As noted by The Independent, the original photographs of Sunak in front of the Morrisons sign were taken by Reuters photographer Toby Melville, and are available on the Getty Images website. One image shows Sunak inspecting a loaf of bread, and the other showed Sunak looking up and smiling. In neither image did Sunak’s head cover Morrisons’ sign in a way that made it read ‘Moron.’

In the altered photograph, the image of Sunak smiling was changed to make it appear that his head blocked the sign in such a way so the sign read ‘Moron.’ For example, the letters were moved closer to his head, and a person from one of the photographs was added, so as to cover up the last “s” in the logo.

MYTH: An image shows Donald Trump smiling with a group of Black people at a Bronx, New York, neighborhood barbecue after his rally

THE FACTS:

A widely shared image purporting to depict Donald Trump posing with Black people at a barbecue in Bronx, New York, was in fact created using artificial intelligence, NewsGuard found, based on AI detection tools and inconsistencies in the photo. Although Trump has been photographed with actual Black supporters over the years, the image is not an authentic depiction of those supporters.

The image appears to show Trump in a red and white striped tie laughing and smiling at a barbecue with a group of Black people in a Bronx neighborhood. Commentators claimed the image was taken after his May 23, 2024, presidential campaign rally in the Bronx.

TrueMedia.org, a deepfake and AI detection tool used by NewsGuard, detected substantial evidence of manipulation and assessed with “100 percent confidence” that the image was generated by AI. Other indicators that AI was used to create the photo include missing fingers, a waxy, cartoon-like appearance of the people, and abnormally smooth skin. The AI-generated image also showed palm trees in the background, which do not grow in New York City.