Four viral claims of voting fraud fact checked

A post on X which claims, external “the Pentagon reportedly failed to send absentee ballots to active military service members before the election” has been viewed over 28 million times.

It references a letter to Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, written by three Republican members of congress, external, expressing “grave concern” over “deficiencies” in procedures for overseas military personnel to vote.

However the letter does not accuse the Pentagon of failing to send them absentee ballots.

It is not the Pentagon’s job to do this – military personnel can vote abroad through the Federal Voting Assistance Program, external (FVAP) and ballots are sent to them by election officials where they are registered in the US.

If the ballot is in danger of not arriving before the voting deadline, personnel can vote via what is called a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).

The letter claims an unspecified number of “service members” had requested a FWAB but were told their base had run out. However, it is possible to download and sign one through the FVAP website, external.

We asked the Department of Defense for details about how many people had been affected by the issue, but it would not comment. It did say that it had trained 3,000 Voting Assistance Officers to support personnel with voting.