With Election Day bearing down, guarding against misinformation is more vital than ever.

In the coming days and weeks, election officials across the country will tally millions of ballots and declare the winners and losers. That means your social media feed likely will be filled with baseless claims of fraud – many of which we've seen before. Some common narratives:

• The election was stolen due to voter fraud
• Noncitizens are voting in large numbers
• Votes were added/subtracted due to the "hacking" of machines
• Changing vote totals prove cheating occurred
• Partisan election officials skew vote tallies
• There were more votes than registered voters

USA TODAY has debunked dozens of such claims in recent election cycles. Here's a rundown of what these narratives miss, so you're prepared when they crop up again.

Claim No. 1: Voter fraud

Experts call claims of widespread voter fraud deeply exaggerated.

Sign-up for Your Vote: Text with the USA TODAY elections team.

"By and large, fraud is largely a made-up problem," said Paul Smith, senior vice president at the Campaign Legal Center, a government watchdog organization.

There were no indications of systemic problems with voter fraud during either the 2020 election or the midterms two years later, according to state-level reviews of those elections. Still, former President Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican Party made persistent, baseless claims about it.

Many states pushed through election-related changes to address those...

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