Politics

FACT CHECK: Did Georgia’s Fulton County Identify 132,000 ‘Likely Ineligible’ Ballots?

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An image shared on Facebook claims 132,000 ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County have been identified as “likely ineligible.”

Verdict: False

The Fulton County Registration and Elections Board said the claim is “simply false and baseless.” The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has also said there is no evidence of systemic voting issues.

Fact Check:

Social media has become replete with allegations of election fraud since the Nov. 3 presidential election, with many claims focusing on Georgia, a state where, according to The New York Times, President-elect Joe Biden had a roughly 14,000-vote lead over President Donald Trump at the time of publication. The Associated Press and other media outlets called the presidential race for Biden on Nov. 7.

This particular Facebook post alleges that “132,000 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia have been identified which are likely ineligible.” The accompanying caption states that these alleged “likely ineligible” ballots are due to “change of address” red flags and that they are “enough to be a gamechanger” for Trump.

Fulton County includes Atlanta and is Georgia’s most populous county. Had 132,000 of the over 524,000 ballots cast in Fulton County for the presidential election been flagged as “likely ineligible,” it would have been picked up by national media outlets, yet none appear to have done so. In an emailed statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, Fulton County Registration and Elections Board Director Richard Barron said that the claim about 132,000 ballots being flagged is “simply false.”

“Fulton County is aware of allegations of 132,000 ballots being ‘flagged,'” the statement reads. “These claims are simply false and baseless. Certain news organizations have circulated this information without contacting Fulton County for confirmation.”

The inaccurate claim appears to have been highlighted by the Twitter account @Peoples_Pundit, which posted screen grabs of what it claimed showed Georgia voter data that depicted 132,000 people in Fulton County being flagged as “Change of  Address.” However, Fulton County election officials told The Associated Press that the photos do not show an official election database.

Of the over 524,000 votes were cast in Fulton County as of Nov. 10, about 73 percent were in favor of Biden and 26 percent were for Trump, according to unofficial election results found on the county’s official website. Georgia’s secretary of state said Wednesday that they would conduct a by-hand recount of the state’s roughly 5 million votes cast for president, the Wall Street Journal reported. The George Secretary of State’s Office has said there is no evidence of systemic voting problems, per The Associated Press.

Georgia removed over 300,000 inactive voters — including 45,000 in Fulton County — from its list last year, according to local outlet WABE.

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here, for more.