Did Michigan Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed call for Sharia law in the U.S.?
By Sam Howard
With the U.S. midterm elections seven weeks away, NewsGuard today launches our 2026 Midterm Elections Misinformation Tracker, reporting on the false claims and phony websites polluting political discourse ahead of an election that will determine which party controls Congress. Key state governorships are also up for grabs.
As of Sept. 16, NewsGuard has identified and debunked 18 false claims about the midterms that have gone viral on social media platforms and been advanced on 47 websites. Eleven of the false claims alleged election fraud, a particularly pernicious category of narratives since such claims could undermine confidence in the results of the elections and the functioning of democracy.
Five of the 18 claims are based on fabricated images, such as a doctored news article, a digitally altered campaign flyer, and an AI-generated image of a candidate.
The election-related false claims identified by NewsGuard on the tracker include that:
31 people illegally registered to vote at P.O. boxes in a San Diego UPS store, a sign of voter fraud
Actually: Voter registration data obtained by NewsGuard shows that 31 voters registered at the address of the UPS store in question actually live in apartments above the store and do not use P.O. boxes as their residential addresses.
An image shows centrist Democratic candidate for...
The US has announced visa restrictions on some South Africans as Donald Trump’s administration continues to claim that South Africa’s government racially discriminates against white minority Afrik...