2020 Election Misinformation Tracking Center
The Top Election Myths Spreading Online and the Red-Rated Websites Promoting Them: 166 and Counting.
by Gabby Deutch and Kendrick McDonald | Last updated 1/20/2021 at 3:48 p.m. ET
Melissa Goldin, Evan Haddad, Shayna Elliot, Carly Wanna, John Gregory, Chandler Kidd, Sophia Tewa, Chine Labbe, Marie Richter, and Virginia Padovese contributed reporting.
From Election Day through the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration of President Joe Biden, NewsGuard found a total of 166 websites spreading misinformation about voting, the ballot-counting process, and the results of the 2020 U.S. Election. Myths about fraud and mail-in voting began spreading weeks and even months before the election, laying the groundwork for the barrage of false claims that have since emerged denying the legitimacy of the results.
The most sweeping and most widely cited myth that emerged from the 2020 election was that the election was “stolen” from President Trump, due to widespread cheating by Democrats, and that President Biden’s victory was “illegitimate.”
Listed below are the most prominent myths NewsGuard found in its reporting, along with explanations of the facts, and examples of misinformation sites that have promoted the myths.
The falsehoods published by these 166 sites include the claims that counting votes after Nov 3, 2020, was illegal, that Democrats stole the election from President Trump through widespread fraud, and that the U.S. military raided voting machine company servers in Europe.
For more information about the websites listed here — all of which NewsGuard has rated Red for failing to meet basic standards of credibility and transparency — download our news literacy browser extension, where you’ll find full credibility ratings with information about each site’s editorial standards and practices.
Materially false information about voting, the election, and ballot counting came primarily from U.S. sources rated Red by NewsGuard. But we also found several sources publishing false claims from Germany, Italy, France, and the U.K.
To read more of NewsGuard’s coverage of the 2020 election, see our report on Facebook’s Election Misinformation Super-Spreaders and our Misinformation Monitor about the spread of election falsehoods to Europe.
