schema:articleBody
| - AFP's fact-check service debunks misinformation spread online. Here are some of our recent fact-checks on the US election: As the United States approaches election day on November 3, misleading claims from President Donald Trump and his opponent Joe Biden are circulating on hot-button issues from the Covid-19 pandemic to the economy, health care and housing. Social media posts, including one by the writer Elizabeth Gilbert, advise Americans to drop off their ballots or cast it in person, warning they risk losing their vote if their mail-in ballot arrives after November 3. This is misleading; while some states will not be counting ballots received after that date, 22 states will accept them as long as they are postmarked no later than polling day. Political action committees are using a video clip of Joe Biden speaking at a campaign event to claim that the Democratic presidential candidate said he would raise taxes. But Biden was speaking to a specific person in the audience about the merit of a progressive tax system, not generally pledging to increase taxes. With the US election about to be decided, Donald Trump Jr, the president's son, tweeted that the flu killed 75,000 Americans last year and nearly none this year, suggesting that deaths are being miscounted to "manipulate the truth" about the coronavirus pandemic. This is false; US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has counted about 8,000 flu deaths so far in 2020, which are reported separately from Covid-19 deaths. Last season's flu killed between 24,000 and 62,000 Americans, not 75,000. 1. 2. 3. 4. afp
|