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Readers’ choice: Vote for PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year

Cast your vote for PolitiFact's 2023 Lie of the Year. Cast your vote for PolitiFact's 2023 Lie of the Year.

Cast your vote for PolitiFact's 2023 Lie of the Year.

By PolitiFact Staff December 4, 2023

Note: The reader poll has closed. Thanks to all who voted!

It’s time for one of PolitiFact’s favorite traditions: learning what our readers think we should pick as the annual Lie of the Year.

PolitiFact awards the Lie of the Year to the most significant falsehood or exaggeration that worked to undermine an accurate narrative. (PolitiFact editors make the official choice, but that shouldn’t stop you from weighing in.) The 2022 Lie of the Year went to Russia President Vladimir Putin for his campaign of lies to justify the Ukraine invasion. The 2021 Lie of the Year went to lies about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and its significance, and our 2020 pick went to COVID-19 downplay and denial.

Cast your vote for the 2023 Lie of the Year in the form below. You can select from among our finalists or write in your choice. (Scroll below to see links to each of the fact-checks listed on the ballot.)

 
  1. Former President Donald Trump: "They are trying to make it illegal to question the results of a bad election." False

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  2. President Joe Biden: "Ground zero in New York — I remember standing there the next day." False

  3. Former President Donald Trump: "Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund (the attacks on Israel by Hamas), which many reports are saying came from the Biden administration." False

  4. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: "COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese." Pants on Fire!

  5. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis "In some liberal states, you actually have post-birth abortions." False

  6. Instagram posts: Maui, Hawaii, fires are part of an intentional effort to rebuild the island into a "smart island." False

  7. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: "There’s not been a single book banned in the state of Florida." False 

  8. Former U.S. Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y.: "I never claimed to be Jewish." Pants on Fire!

  9. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley: Having "biological boys … in their locker rooms" is a reason why "a third of our teenage girls seriously contemplated suicide last year." False

  10. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Atrazine in the water supply is contributing to "sexual dysphoria" in kids. False

  11. Write your own:

We’ll announce the Lie of the Year and the Readers’ Choice award in a few weeks. Thank you for voting!

 

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Readers’ choice: Vote for PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year