The most populous county in the US state of Arizona has certified its 2022 midterm results, but a conservative website claims the jurisdiction "lost" more than 290,000 ballots cast on November 8. This is false; the article is based on a misreading of data -- local officials say the supposedly missing votes are provisional and mail-in ballots that were returned on Election Day.

"IMPOSSIBLE: Maricopa County Lost 291,930 Election Day Votes?" says the November 28, 2022 article from the Gateway Pundit, a conservative website that has promoted false claims about voting in Arizona and other states, including Nevada, Michigan, Colorado and New Hampshire.

Screenshot from Truth Social taken November 28, 2022

Similar claims spread across social media on November 28 before the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to certify the jurisdiction's midterm election results. But the posts are false.

The Gateway Pundit article focuses on a line from a Maricopa County document that says: "On Election Day, over 540,000 voters visited a site."

Because local officials reported roughly 248,000 "Election Day" votes, the website concludes that "somewhere along the way Maricopa County lost 291,930 votes."

But Megan Gilbertson, communications director for the Maricopa County Elections Department, confirmed in an email that the 540,000 figure accounts for anyone who cast a ballot at a voting site on November 8 -- including those who submitted provisional ballots or dropped off mail-in...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiSWh0dHBzOi8vbmV3cy55YWhvby5jb...