FACT FOCUS: Misinformation about voting spreads less than a week before Election Day

False and misleading claims about the voting process are being spread online as voters cast their ballots in the 2026 midterms, with Election Day less than a week away.

The posts often focus on alleged election rigging or voter fraud. However, closer scrutiny of the claim typically reveals a logical explanation.

Here's a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: A punched hole in a Ventura County, California, ballot return envelope is proof of election rigging.

THE FACTS: This is false. The ballot return envelopes have two holes, according to election officials. They help election workers confirm that the ballot has been removed and act as an accessibility feature.

A video spreading online shows the front of a return envelope from Ventura County that has a punched hole on one side. A man explains that if ballots are inserted with a certain side facing the front of the envelope, the bubble for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra is visible through the hole.

The man warns: “Be very careful how you place your ballot in your California envelope.” A popular X post claimed that “California is rigging elections,” using the video as alleged proof.

Simone Seydoux, spokesperson for the Office of the Ventura County Clerk-Recorder & Registrar of Voters, explained that the envelopes follow a design standard recommended by the California secretary of state. Both holes can be seen from the back of the envelope. They appear on each side of the spot voters must sign, acting as a guide for those who are vision impaired. One of these holes goes through the entire envelope so that election workers can ensure it is empty after the ballot has been removed. Workers also secure stacks of emptied envelopes for storage by inserting zip ties through this hole.

“The holes are NOT positioned in order to see the vote on a particular contest,” Seydoux wrote in an email. “The envelopes are ordered ahead of time and used from one election to another if possible.”

Ventura County's 2026 general election ballot consists of three double-sided ballot cards, according to Seydoux. She added that “voters are welcome to fold the ballot and place it in the envelope in any order.”

The California secretary of state's office confirmed earlier this month that there is nothing untoward about such holes.

“The small holes on some county ballot return envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope,” the office wrote in an Instagram post. “If a voter is concerned their ballot choices might be visible through these holes, they can insert their ballots into the return envelope in various ways where all choices are hidden.”

CLAIM: A New York City polling site gave a voter two ballots, one of which was missing the conservative candidates.

THE FACTS: This claim was originally made in a TikTok video by a user who says in the comments that she voted at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City. A sample ballot for that location shows that it consists of two double-sided pages. One side of the second page includes judicial races, in which no conservative candidates are running.

“They’re betting on your stupidity and they’re betting on your ignorance that you are not going to see that they’re giving you a ballot that is missing half the candidates,” the woman in the video says. “That’s actually some real foolery and real trickery right there. So honestly, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.”

There are four judicial races on the ballot. Democratic candidates are running in all of them and Working Families Party candidates are running in one. There are no Republican or Conservative Party candidates listed since there are none in the race.

“The only reason there would be no candidate on a party line in a contest on the ballot is because no individual was nominated by that party for that particular office,” Kathleen McGrath, a spokesperson for the New York State Board of Elections, wrote in an email. “Of course, all contests offer voters a space for write-in candidates, so voters can write in another person if they do not like the choices printed on the ballot.”

She added that New York City has had multi-page ballots for many years.

The woman in the video also highlights the fact that she was told she didn’t need to show her ID before voting. In New York, voters provide their Department of Motor Vehicles number or the last four digits of their social security number when registering to vote. They may also use another form of valid photo ID or a government document that shows their name and address, such as a utility bill or a bank statement. Voters will be asked for ID at the polls if their identity cannot be verified before Election Day, according to the state’s registration form.

McGrath explained that voters must only verify their identity at the polls via signature if additional identification, such as a photo ID, has already been verified. Their signature is reviewed and approved by two bipartisan poll workers at the site to ensure it matches what is in their voter record.

“Unfortunately, much mis- and disinformation about elections and voting spreads quickly online,” she wrote. “Worse yet, many social media posts are made solely as efforts to troll or get clicks (with no concern for truth or impact). Sometimes, it is simply the individual not understanding the process — which is run securely, transparently, and always by bipartisan officials in New York State. Boards of elections remain the trusted sources for accurate information.”

CLAIM: Touchscreen voting machines in multiple states are flipping votes from Democrats to Republicans.

THE FACTS: Election officials say the touchscreen challenges are almost always the result of user error or an easily fixed screen miscalibration, and say the number of complaints this year isn’t higher than it has been in years past, despite outsized attention on social media. They emphasize that voters can select a candidate as many times as needed, consult a poll worker for help and review selections before submitting their ballot.

“Almost all of the claims of vote flipping are understandable human error,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, who noted disinformation purveyors often seize on well-meaning concerns to sow doubt in the voting process. “Is there one of us who hasn’t had a butt dial or mistyped something on our phones? It is not nefarious.”

Voters across the country cast ballots in various ways, including with ballot marking devices that print a paper record or with paper ballots they fill out by hand.

The counties where most of the recent vote-flipping social media reports are concentrated use ExpressVote ballot marking devices from a company called Election Systems & Software. The machines let voters make their selections on a touchscreen. Then, a paper record is typically printed for review before the votes are tabulated.

Katina Granger, senior manager of public relations for the Nebraska-based ES&S, said the company works closely with election officials and provides technical support when needed but has not been made aware of any widespread issue with voting machines this cycle.

She said when a voter is having difficulty, they should ask a poll worker for assistance. If they’ve already printed a ballot that doesn’t reflect their intended selections, “they should notify a poll worker rather than cast it so the jurisdiction can follow its procedures for replacing the ballot.”

CLAIM: Ballots marked by poll workers will be disqualified in the 2026 midterm elections.

THE FACTS: Voting procedures vary by jurisdiction, but it is not unheard of for poll workers to mark ballots as part of the process. There are multiple reasons a poll worker might write on a ballot, according to election officials in multiple states. Experts advise voters to check what the rules are in their district and to avoid making stray marks of their own.

In many North Carolina counties, for example, election workers write “P” for provisional or “A” for absentee in a box in the upper left corner of a ballot so that they can be identified if they are put into a tabulator instead of sealed in an envelope as they are supposed to be. Ballots in Illinois are initialed before they are issued to voters.

“I always like to say, get your facts straight from the source, and the source is your local election official,” said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology. “Not your friends, cousin, uncle, on Facebook.”

Smith encouraged voters to seek out information on the websites or social media accounts of those officials. She also suggested asking a poll worker who marks a ballot why they’ve done so if a voter has concerns.

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

Voters use privacy booths to fill out their ballots at an early voting site in Haverstraw, N.Y., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Voters use privacy booths to fill out their ballots at an early voting site in Haverstraw, N.Y., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

FILE - Ballots are inspected the day after California's primary election at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center, June 3, 2026, in City of Industry, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Patrick Stewart, the classically trained actor who added Shakespearean gravitas to the “Star Trek” and “X-Men” franchises, has died. He was 86.

Stewart died Wednesday in Los Angeles, following “a brief and poignant journey” with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy Body Dementia, spokesperson Kelly Bush Novak said. Stewart’s diagnoses had not been previously disclosed.

While best known as Professor Charles Xavier and Captain Jean-Luc Picard from the “X-Men” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series and films, respectively, Stewart spent more of his career onstage than in the X-Mansion or on the USS Enterprise.

Besides playing everyone from Claudius to Macbeth, he often performed a one-man rendition of “A Christmas Carol” and did West End and Broadway runs of Harold Pinter's “No Man's Land” and Samuel Beckett's “Waiting for Godot” in repertoire with buddy Ian McKellen.

He achieved some of the best reviews of his career when he finally tackled Macbeth for the first time. The production, under the direction of Rupert Goold, debuted in May 2007 at England’s Chichester Festival Theatre, switched to London’s West End and then moved to the Brooklyn Academy of Music before transferring to Broadway in 2008.

Stewart’s performance earned him his sole Tony Award nomination. The Times of London said his Macbeth was “an enthralling creation of frailty, appetite, egotism and grim humor.” The Daily Telegraph said he had turned in “a truly great performance” and The New York Times said it was “a must-see.”

“Nearly 50 years I’ve waited,” Stewart told The Associated Press in 2008. “I learned it when I was 14. I memorized all the soliloquies just because I thought they were great. And they stuck, so I didn’t have to learn those bits of the play, which is a blessing, because learning lines has now become the one curse of this job.”

Raised in Mirfield in Yorkshire, a working class corner of northern England, the future 24th century commander of a starship grew up without a bathroom in his house.

Stewart joined an amateur drama group at 12 and memorized Shakespeare for fun as a teen. He won a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, launching a career as a character actor.

He had been bald since he was 19 — alopecia runs in his family.

His father, a former regimental sergeant major in the British Army, was prone to outbursts of “repeated violence against my mother,” as Stewart wrote in a newspaper piece. “Violence is always a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.”

In his memoir, “Making It So,” Stewart wrote about how he and his older brother Trevor braced for the nights when their dad came home drunk and angry, and attacked their mother. “Sometimes it was with an open hand, other times a closed fist. Always he aimed for her head.”

The son would later become a patron for Refuge, an organization that provides shelter for domestic abuse victims.

“The stage would prove to be a safe space, a refuge from real life in which I could inhabit another person, living in another place and time,” he would write.

Stewart was accepted into the Royal Shakespeare Company and stayed for 14 years, playing everything from Mark Antony to Henry IV to Shylock to Oberon. “People who were not in the company would say to me, ‘Give it a break. Why don’t you go somewhere else?’ And I would say, ‘To do what?‘” he told the AP. “Telly?”

Stewart eventually left to look for more varied work, including the 1981 film “Excalibur.” He had just done a production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 1987 when an interesting offer came along. “I found myself in Hollywood shooting a syndicated science fiction series, which I was assured would fail.”

It didn’t, of course. Thanks to Stewart’s rich baritone and noble bearing, the “Star Trek” franchise ran for seven years, 178 episodes and produced four feature films. He was known for his slogan “Make it so.”

His adoration for Shakespeare would serve him well when he began to play Jean-Luc Picard, a 24th century starship commander.

“There is a formality to the way they speak and comport themselves that remind me of numerous Shakespearean situations I’d been in onstage. I should play Jean Luc, I realized, as if he were a character in ‘Henry IV,’ which is about brave men,” Stewart wrote in his memoir.

Despite the Borg and Klingons, Stewart still managed to make room for blank verse. He established the Paramount Shakespeare Company, a workshop on Saturday and Sunday mornings for any actor interested. (Stewart revisited Picard in the TV series “Star Trek: Picard.”)

Stewart died just a few days after Walter Koenig, another “Star Trek” icon, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov on the original NBC TV show from 1966 to 1969.

The show gave him higher visibility, which led to more work, including roles in the films “Conspiracy Theory,” “L.A. Story” and on Broadway, where he starred in “The Tempest,” “The Caretaker” and David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theater.” He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2010. Stewart was also an ambassador for the International Rescue Committee.

In July 1992, he and supermodel Cindy Crawford were on the cover of TV Guide’s “Top Turn-Ons,” based on a readers’ poll. In his memoir, Stewart wrote: “Absurd.”

Stewart was first introduced as the character Xavier in the original X-Men trilogy, appearing in three films from 2000 to 2006. He later returned in four more movies before Professor X’s death in 2017’s “Logan.” He reappeared in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” in 2022 and is reprising the role in the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday.”

He also showed off his comedic chops aboard Seth MacFarlane’s Starz show “Blunt Talk” for two series and voiced Poop in “The Emoji Movie.” He made appearances on “Robot Chicken,” “Futurama” and “The Simpsons” (in one episode, Homer loses his hair, and Stewart tells him it’s great to be bald.)

Later in life, he proved internet-savvy and found new fans with his humor, posing in a bath in a lobster suit and triggering memes when he posted a photo of him picking apples. When he was mistakenly outed as gay by a British newspaper, he said it was a nice change. “At least I didn’t wake up to the internet telling me I was dead again,” he tweeted.

He married Brooklyn songwriter and singer Sunny Ozell in 2013, with the actor’s “X-Men” co-star McKellen officiating. Stewart later tweeted a photo of the newlyweds in a ball pit.

He also is survived by two children, a daughter, Sophia, and a son, Daniel.

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AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr contributed reporting.

FILE - Patrick Stewart, from left, James McAvoy, Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender appear at the UK Premiere of "X-Men: Days Of Future Past" at a central London cinema, Monday, May 12, 2014. (Photo by Jonathan Short/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart poses in his dressing room at the Lyceum Theater in New York on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, where he is starring in a production of "Macbeth." (AP Photo/Rick Maiman, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart, cast member in the Paramount+ television series "Star Trek: Picard" poses for a portrait during the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 9, 2023. (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart, left, and Sunny Ozell arrive at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 10, 2024, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart arrives at the premiere of the third and final season of "Star Trek: Picard" on Feb. 9, 2023, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Patrick Stewart attends the 84th Annual Peabody Awards on Sunday, June 9, 2024, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)