CLAIM: A document dated Nov. 4, 2020, shows that election officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, wrongfully accepted 18,000 ballots after election day in 2020.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. A form used by Maricopa County election officials is being misrepresented as proof that the ballots were accepted after election day. The form is actually a receipt that confirms when early ballots in unopened envelopes — received prior to the deadline on election day — were handed off to a private vendor to be scanned, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections Department told The Associated Press. The CEO of the vendor, Runbeck Election Services, also confirmed the form’s purpose.
THE FACTS: An image of a form is being shared widely on social media with false claims that it shows Maricopa County officials improperly counted thousands of ballots after the 2020 general election.
The form features the header, “MC INBOUND - RECEIPT OF DELIVERY,” as well as a listed date of Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election. Below are a series of rows and columns. The left hand side features rows with titles like “LATES” and “POST OFFICE INBOUND.” One of the columns is titled “QTY OF PIECES” and a handwritten “18,000” is featured in the column’s top row.
“BREAKING: Maricopa County accepted 18,000 ballots AFTER election day,” one Twitter user wrote on Saturday with an image of the form. The tweet was shared over 1,000 times.
Megan Gilbertson, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections...
PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar instructed officials to prepare a defamation lawsuit against "one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published" on Israel. Israel wi...