FALSE: Wisconsin tallies more votes than registered voters

At a glance:

• Claim: Wisconsin has tallied more votes than people registered to vote.
• Rating: FALSE
• The facts: The Wisconsin Elections Commission reported over 3.68 million active registered voters on November 1. As of Friday, November 6 (Philippine time), over 3.3 million votes have been counted.
• Why we fact-checked this: Several posts containing this claim were flagged by Facebook’s monitoring tool. At least 6 local Facebook pages and accounts posted this claim.

Complete details:

Twitter user Michael Coudrey claimed that votes counted in Wisconsin have exceeded the number of registered voters, alleging a “direct evidence of fraud.” He cites the total number of registered voters in Wisconsin at 3,129,000 in comparison to 3,239,920 votes cast. 

A screenshot of the now-deleted Tweet continues to circulate on social media and has been amplified by local Facebook pages and accounts. Claim Check, Facebook’s monitoring tool, flagged at least 6 posts containing this claim that circulated in the Philippines. Posts were shared on Thursday, November 5 (Philippine time).

This claim is false. According to the Wisconsin Election Commission, “The State of Wisconsin had 3,684,726 active registered voters on November 1, 2020.”

As of 11:48 am, Friday, November 6 (Manila time), 3,297,420 votes have been counted in Wisconsin.

The inaccurate number of registered voters may have been pulled from the US Census Bureau’s data for the 2018 midterm elections.

The pages and accounts that shared the claim compared the Wisconsin count to alleged “irregularities” during the 2016 Philippine presidential race. (READ: Duterte supporters allege cheating in presidential polls)

One of the pages said, “Di kayo gumaya dito sa Pilipinas ung 21M binawasan ng 5Million, yong alam nilang sosobra na sa registered voter ayun nagconcede, tinigil na kaya winorkout talaga nila sa cubao na manalo ung isa overnight, just like a thief in the night.”

(Why don’t you copy the Philippines, 5 million was removed from the 21 million when they knew that they had exceeded the [number of] registered voters, so they conceded. They stopped it and worked it out in Cubao so that one would win overnight, just like a thief in the night.)

On November 4, President Donald Trump made unprecedented claims of fraud and demanded a recount in Wisconsin, where Democratic candidate Joe Biden notched up another win to inch closer to overall victory. Biden was declared the winner of Wisconsin with an insurmountable lead of 20,000 after 98% of ballots had been counted. (READ: Trump challenges counts as Biden inches closer to victory)

Mail-in ballots are still being counted, too, and the Wisconsin Elections Commission said official results may take longer because there were about 1.9 million people in the state that returned absentee ballots. Absentee ballots take longer to process than ballots cast in person on Election Day.

Trump also falsely claimed to have won the still undecided election, citing raw vote counts in multiple states. He has also called to stop all vote-counting due to allegations of fraudulent ballots. (READ: FALSE: Trump wins 2020 U.S. election) – with reports from Jo Comuyog, Pauline Macaraeg/Rappler.com

This article was written by a Rappler volunteer or intern and reviewed by a member of Rappler’s research team and a senior editor. Learn more about Rappler’s internship program here.

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