Photo shows “2 sitting senators counting ballots” in Georgia.
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Photo shows poll workers - not senators - counting ballots in Pennsylvania
If Your Time is short
- A still of two masked poll workers is from Pennsylvania in November. It doesn’t show two Democratic state senators counting ballots in Georgia.
Rev. Raphael Warnock beat Sen. Kelly Loeffler in the run-off election in Georgia on Jan. 5 while Jon Ossoff was leading in the tight race against Sen. David Perdue with votes still being counted.
But social media posts are sharing and again mischaracterizing an old image to wrongly suggest that the Republican incumbents are the victims of voter fraud.
"When Anons go through 14 hours of CCTV footage of the election count in Georgia and find 2 sitting senators counting ballots .. this election is a f------ fraud!!" reads one Facebook post.
The post shows one photo of two masked poll workers and a second photo of Georgia state senators also wearing masks: Democrats Elena Parent and Jen Jordan. It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
The image of the senators is from a Dec. 3 committee hearing that focused on unfounded allegations of election fraud.
Featured Fact-check
The image of the poll workers comes from footage taken by the Associated Press in Pittsburgh on Nov. 7. The video is titled: "Polling workers continue counting in Pennsylvania."
Parent and a spokesperson for Jordan told Reuters they are not pictured in the footage from Pennsylvania. And it definitely doesn’t show "CCTV footage of the election count in Georgia" as the Facebook post claims.
We rate this post False.
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Our Sources
Facebook post, Jan. 2, 2021
The New York Times, Georgia live updates: Democrats edge closer to Senate control as Ossoff’s lead grows, Jan. 6, 2021
YouTube, Second Georgia Senate election hearing, visited Jan. 6, 2021
Georgia Public Radio, Fact checking Rudy Giuliani’s grandiose Georgia election fraud claim, Dec. 4, 2020
The Associated Press, US PA Allegheny vote count, Nov. 7, 2020
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Photo shows poll workers - not senators - counting ballots in Pennsylvania
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