A story circulating on social media deceptively claims “Bad Things Are Happening in PA.” It overstates the significance of a video that shows a Republican poll watcher being denied access to a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day, and it falsely claims that there was an illegal political sign at another city location.
Several posts on social media have made false or misleading claims alleging voter suppression and voting fraud across the United States.
A bogus post on Instagram purports to be from an Erie County, Pennsylvania, poll worker who claimed he threw out over 100 pro-Trump ballots. The chair of the Erie County Board of Elections says the man “does not work in any way with Erie County or have any part of Erie County’s election process.”
Pennsylvania voters told to quarantine due to potential COVID-19 exposure are entitled to vote and can request and return an emergency absentee ballot through 8 p.m. on Election Day. A viral Facebook post misleadingly suggests they are being disenfranchised.
A popular Instagram post suggests nefarious actors are misrepresenting trash cans in Philadelphia as ballot boxes. The signs seen in the images were actually part of a poorly conceived advertising effort for an exhibit about voting rights — and they were quickly removed.
This is a guide to key stories we did during the 2020 election between Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.
President Trump falsely contrasted COVID-19 policies in two Western states, claiming Republican-led Arizona is open but Democratic-led Nevada is closed. Both states are in similar stages of reopening.
President Trump and his allies continue to ignore Joe Biden’s written plan to only prohibit permits for new oil and gas drilling on federal land and waters. That plan would allow for extraction methods to continue under existing permits and in nonfederal areas.
A viral video questions the safety of face masks by using a gas detector to purportedly show that masks result in dangerous oxygen levels for the wearer. But experts — and the company that makes the gas detector — say the video’s test is scientifically flawed.
A TV ad from a Republican super PAC uses video of Joe Biden inaccurately explaining his climate plan against him. Biden’s campaign has said he would not completely ban fossil fuels, specifically fracking, as the ad appears to show him saying.