Skip to content

Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022

Is there widespread fraud in Wisconsin’s voter database?

Dana Ford, Lead Stories

no

Peter Bernegger, who leads a group of citizens looking at election data, recently made a presentation to a Wisconsin electoral committee alleging fraud in the state's voter database.

Two officials with the Wisconsin Elections Commission testified in front of the same committee, debunking a number of Bernegger's allegations.

For instance, Bernegger included inactive voters in a count to present a false discrepancy between the amount of voters on paper and the amount of adults living in Wisconsin.

Bernegger also alleged that a certain name belonged to a voter that didn't actually exist, but the officials located the resident in their database.

Among the procedures and protections in place to prevent the sort of fraud Bernegger described are that the paper ballot record is retained and that records are subject to state certification and audits.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

See all fact briefs

Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.

Learn More

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.