Formatting error in Michigan doesn’t mean voters cast ballots from multiple addresses

Some social media users said data from early voting reports in Michigan showed more votes than actual voters, claiming that election fraud was underway in the battleground state.

An Oct. 30 Facebook post said 279,113 ballots were "cast by only 114,545 voters."

"If you are keeping score, that means that at least 164,568 illegal votes have been cast in MI ... and we are still six days away from election day," the post’s caption said. "Yet more evidence in support of my assertion that Early Voting is designed to enable election fraud."

The Facebook post shared a screenshot of an X post by Matthew DePerno, a former candidate for Michigan attorney general and the state’s Supreme Court. DePerno is awaiting trial on felony charges related to an alleged conspiracy to tamper with voting machines after the 2020 general election.

DePerno said the numbers were discovered in a review of the state’s Qualified Voter File and showed votes cast as of Oct. 29. He shared an image of what he said were 29 votes recorded from a single voter ID in Wayne County, and tagged Elon Musk and the Republican Party on X.

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

But the post is misleading. Data shown on the social media posts doesn’t mean that one voter cast multiple votes, the Michigan Department of State explained on its website, attributing it to a formatting error in the Qualified Voter File.

(Screenshot from Facebook)

The claims about excess votes from single voters in Michigan spread widely on social media. DePerno’s X post had more than 5.6 million views and 28,000 reshares on X as of Oct. 31. Rasmussen Reports, a conservative polling company, shared the same image on X and garnered 7.6 million views and 16,000 reshares.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office addressed the claims in an Oct. 30 Facebook post that said, "A recent social media post has taken a data report that included formatting errors to incorrectly claim that individual voters were casting multiple ballots in this election."

In an Oct. 31 X post, Benson wrote, "Expect bad actors to take minor issues and use them to fuel baseless conspiracy theories in order to further their own agenda." 

Both secretary of state posts linked to the state’s Election Fact Center, which has a long post addressing the issue.

A fact center’s headline said, "The Qualified Voter File only allows one ballot to be accepted per voter in every election – a formatting error has been corrected."

The lengthy post added that "a recent social media has taken a data report that included formatting errors to incorrectly claim that individual voters were casting multiple ballots in this election. The data error has been identified and corrected."

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The post said the file has a record of each qualified and registered voter and each record has  a voter ID with a unique identifier. When a voter moves, the address change history is added to the file. The registration, however, is only active at the last address at which a voter registered, the post said. 

"The QVF does NOT allow for multiple ballots to be accepted for the same voter or Voter ID," the post said in bold letters.

The post said Michigan’s Bureau of Elections identified the formatting error in a routine report that shows a list of voters who have cast ballots early for by absentee ballot. The error generated a line for each voters’ former addresses, resulting in the list showing multiple addresses associated with one voter ID. 

"Each of these voters only had one vote recorded for this election," the post said, adding that the error has been fixed.

Despite the explanation that no excess votes were counted, some conservatives took credit on social media for preventing it.

The claim caught the attention of Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law. She said on X, "We immediately investigated and have CONFIRMED that it was a glitch in the system – these duplicates were not and WILL NOT BE COUNTED. We are on it and protecting the vote!"

Rogan O’Handley, a conservative who uses the social media handle DC_Draino, credited the RNC, writing on Instagram, "This is how we win. We just stopped 168,000 fake ballots from being counted in Michigan in only hours after it was discovered."

Michigan secretary of state spokesperson Angela Benander told PolitiFact in an email that "the error had been previously caught and corrected" before the social media posts.

A social media post claimed that in Michigan, 279,113 ballots were cast by only 114,545 voters, meaning that 164,568 illegal votes were cast. Some voters were casting multiple ballots using the same voter ID and different addresses, the post claimed.

Michigan’s State Department said a formatting error, which has been fixed, in its Qualified Voter File showed lines for multiple addresses for some voter IDs that had cast ballots. The voter file keeps previous addresses on record, even if the voter moves, but a voter’s registration is active only for the last registered address. The system does not allow for multiple votes from the same ID, the state said.

A formatting error in a report showed multiple addresses for some voters who had cast ballots, but only one vote per ID had been counted. We rate the claim that there were 114,545 illegal votes cast in Michigan False.

RELATED: Social media posts mislead about Michigan voter rolls and election fraud 

RELATED: No clear winner on election night? That’s not evidence of election fraud 

RELATED: Detroit absentee ballot return rate doesn’t signal election fraud 

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.