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Video from our forum: PolitiFact Wisconsin explains how our election fact-checking works

Wisconsin
PolitiFact logo
Tom Kertscher
By Tom Kertscher
October 23, 2018

Ever wondered how PolitiFact works? How we choose statements to fact check? How we determine our ratings on the Truth-O-Meter?

Watch the video from our Oct. 23, 2018 PolitiFact event in Milwaukee.

The event featured Angie Holan, PolitiFact’s national editor; PolitiFact Wisconsin editor Greg Borowski; and PolitiFact Wisconsin reporter Tom Kertscher. They will spoke and took questions from the audience.

Our Sources

PolitiFact

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

More by Tom Kertscher
Facebook posts
stated on August 26, 2023 in a Facebook post:
Video suggests Canada wildfires were deliberately set to advance “smart cities” push.
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 30, 2023
Instagram posts
stated on August 26, 2023 in a video:
Women vaccinated against COVID-19 face “unknown side effects that could perpetually go down through the lineage” to their children.
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 29, 2023
Facebook posts
stated on August 25, 2023 in a Facebook post:
As of Aug. 25, “Luis Rubiales has resigned as the president of the Spanish Football Federation.”
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 29, 2023
Instagram posts
stated on August 24, 2023 in an Instagram post:
The World Health Organization said there is “a possible causal relationship” between COVID-19 vaccines and multiple sclerosis.
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 28, 2023
Facebook posts
stated on August 9, 2023 in a Facebook post:
Video shows military planes over Nashville “dispersing materials into the atmosphere” for geoengineering.
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 23, 2023
Facebook posts
stated on August 20, 2023 in a Facebook post:
“Official statement — Putin assassinated in the Kremlin!”
Pants on Fire!
By Tom Kertscher • August 22, 2023
Facebook posts
stated on August 8, 2023 in a Facebook post:
“The federal government has just declared a major food shortage emergency” in six states.
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 16, 2023
Steve Kirsch
stated on August 8, 2023 in a blog post:
COVID-19 vaccines have killed 676,000 Americans.
Pants on Fire!
By Tom Kertscher • August 14, 2023
Instagram posts
stated on August 6, 2023 in a viral image:
California passed a law “reducing penalties for oral, anal sex with willing children.”
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 9, 2023
TikTok posts
stated on June 22, 2023 in a post:
A new law allows people to permanently erase unpaid debt older than two years from their credit records.
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 1, 2023
Instagram posts
stated on July 28, 2023 in a video:
“Skin cancer is a relatively new phenomenon in the last 60 years or so.”
False
By Tom Kertscher • August 1, 2023
Facebook posts
stated on July 26, 2023 in a Facebook post:
Says Bill Gates said, “We’re taking things that are genetically modified organisms, and we’re injecting them into little kids’ arms” in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
False
By Tom Kertscher • July 31, 2023
Instagram posts
stated on July 19, 2023 in an Instagram post:
A wind turbine must “spin continually for over four years just to replace the energy it took to manufacture it.”
False
By Tom Kertscher • July 28, 2023
TikTok posts
stated on July 15, 2023 in un video en TikTok:
“Biden elimina ‘tráfico sexual de menores’ como una de las prioridades del Departamento de Justicia de su gobierno”.
False
By Maria Briceño, Tom Kertscher • July 25, 2023
Instagram posts
stated on July 17, 2023 in an Instagram post:
“Florida to ban mRNA vaccines as credible evidence of biological weapons.”
False
By Tom Kertscher • July 18, 2023

Video from our forum: PolitiFact Wisconsin explains how our election fact-checking works

Clear
Randy Fine
stated on August 16, 2026 in a fundraising email:
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “requiring ID” to shop at city-run grocery stores.
False
By Amy Sherman • August 18, 2026
Abdul El-Sayed
stated on August 5, 2026 in an interview:
Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers “helped to architect the legislation that kicked off the opioid epidemic.”
Mostly False
By Caleb McCullough • August 17, 2026
Alexander Vindman
stated on July 27, 2026 in an X post:
Then-Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody transferred “$10 million in taxpayer money meant for children’s health care to a campaign fund.”
Half-True
By Samantha Putterman • August 13, 2026
Ron Johnson
stated on August 10, 2026 in a Fox News Digital video:
There is “an 82% miscarriage rate with women who got the (COVID-19 vaccine) injection in the first or second trimester.”
False
By Caleb McCullough • August 12, 2026
Donald Trump
stated on August 10, 2026 in remarks in the Oval Office:
When the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines are given together in the combined MMR vaccine, “there could be a possibility they’re quite lethal.”
Pants on Fire!
By Amy Sherman, Madison Czopek • August 11, 2026
Donald Trump
stated on August 10, 2026 in remarks while signing an executive order:
There are vaccines the size of a “bottle of soda … poured into a little child’s body.”
Pants on Fire!
By Grace Abels, Louis Jacobson • August 11, 2026
X posts
stated on August 8, 2026 in X posts:
Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed “openly calls for Sharia law in America.”
Pants on Fire!
By Amy Sherman • August 10, 2026
Donald Trump
stated on August 4, 2026 in a Fox News interview:
Prices are “all coming down now. The food, the groceries, it’s all coming down.”
Mostly False
By Louis Jacobson • August 10, 2026
Mike Rogers
stated on August 5, 2026 in a campaign statement:
Abdul El-Sayed “believes America deserved 9/11.”
Pants on Fire!
By Caleb McCullough • August 7, 2026
Byron Donalds
stated on July 22, 2026 in X post:
“Senate Bill 484 ensures that utility rates will not go up due to data centers.”
Half-True
By Samantha Putterman • August 7, 2026
Seth Moulton
stated on August 5, 2026 in an Instagram post:
“DOJ Epstein files reveal Senator Ed Markey was part of Epstein lobbying effort.”
Mostly False
By Amy Sherman, Caleb McCullough • August 6, 2026
Donald Trump
stated on August 4, 2026 in una entrevista en Fox News :
En Venezuela, “Estamos ganando cientos de miles de millones de dólares (en ingresos petroleros), y ellos también”.
False
By Louis Jacobson • August 6, 2026
Donald Trump
stated on August 4, 2026 in a Fox News interview:
In Venezuela, “We’re making hundreds of billions of dollars (in oil revenue), and so are they.”
False
By Louis Jacobson • August 6, 2026
Donald Trump
stated on August 3, 2026 in remarks in the Oval Office:
“There was vandalism” at the Reflecting Pool.
False
By Amy Sherman, Louis Jacobson • August 4, 2026
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
stated on August 2, 2026 in an interview with Dana Bash on CNN:
The U.S. “had the highest death rate from COVID of any nation on earth.”
False
By Grace Abels • August 4, 2026
United Democracy Project
stated on July 28, 2026 in an ad:
“With our democracy on the line against Donald Trump in 2024, El-Sayed told Democrats to vote uncommitted — even after Gov. (Gretchen) Whitmer warned those efforts would help elect Donald Trump.”
Half-True
By Gracey Abernethy • July 31, 2026
Haley Stevens
stated on July 27, 2026 in a debate:
“No,” she hasn’t taken money from utility companies for her U.S. Senate campaign.
Mostly False
By Caleb McCullough • July 29, 2026
James Fishback
stated on July 23, 2026 in X post:
The U.S. Congress just “voted to merge our military with Israel’s military.”
False
By Samantha Putterman • July 29, 2026
Senate Leadership Fund
stated on July 25, 2026 in an ad:
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson hit a female colleague.
False
By Amy Sherman • July 28, 2026
Mike Collins
stated on July 21, 2026 in an X post:
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff “voted against the Laken Riley Act.”
False
By Ben Brasch • July 28, 2026
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