Welcome back to Misinformation Roundup, your bulletin of viral rumors that never happened! Through Misinformation Roundup, Athena Strategies aims to debunk falsehoods and empower individuals with accurate information, fostering a healthier democracy.
Here are a few pieces of mis and disinformation that circulated on social media recently, along with clear explanations of why they’re false.
- Hard to believe but there are still the same false claims being regurgitated about the number of ballots cast by mail in Pennsylvania in 2020 as compared to the number of ballots requested – falsehoods that more ballots were cast than sent out. These fabrications have been disproved over and over again during the last 4 years. You can see a recent debunking by the conservative outlet The Dispatch. Rudy Giuliani kicked off this deception back in 2020, intertwining numbers of approved ballot applications from the primary with cast-vote numbers from the general, even though clear and accurate data was published on the Department of State website and many other locations. You can view detailed data from the 2020 general election here and here and from the primary election here and here. Note that in some of the sources, the numbers of absentee and no-excuse mail ballots are added together, while in some data sets they are itemized separately.
- Another regular and false claim circulating over the last several weeks is that it is too late, or not possible, or unconstitutional to replace President Biden on the ballot. These are all false and have been repeatedly debunked by countless election officials and experts as well as media and fact-checking sites such as Reuters, the Associated Press, VoteBeat, and many other outlets. Generally, the deadlines for candidates to appear on ballots are not until late August or September, and there is nothing in the Constitution preventing a political party from nominating a different candidate.
- A Russian disinformation and propaganda campaign has been flagged as the origin of false claims that Olympic women’s boxing gold medal winner Imane Khelif is a man or transgender. The International Olympic Committee has confirmed the eligibility of the participants in the boxing tournaments of the 2024 Olympic Games. The allegations have been debunked by many outlets including the Associated Press, Le Monde, and many others.
Misinformation is a critical threat to our democracy, and Athena Strategies is seeking your help! We encourage our readers to actively scrutinize the information you encounter. Should you come across a piece of content that you suspect to be misinformation, please reach out to us.
With your help, we can stop the spread of false information and strengthen trust in our democratic process. Stay tuned for the next edition of Misinformation Roundup, where we’ll continue to shed light on falsehoods impacting our democracy and world.