How to check US election claims with FEC filings, county clerks, and state offices

What to take away

Start with the claim, not the record

Sort the claim before you open anything. A post that says a candidate "raised millions from foreign donors" is a money claim. A post that says a county "stopped counting" is a count claim. A post that says a state "certified a loser" is a certification claim.

The sort matters because the records do not overlap. An FEC filing cannot tell you a precinct total. A county dashboard cannot tell you who donated.

When a post fuses money and votes into one sentence, treat that as the first warning sign. The two records come from different offices and prove different things.

See our guide to verify a social media account for the wider method.

What FEC filings can and cannot prove

The FEC collects campaign finance reports from candidates, party committees and political action committees. Every federal filing is public and searchable.

A filing shows money in and money out for a coverage period. It shows receipts, disbursements and cash on hand. That is the whole of it.

The FEC does not count votes, certify results or audit precinct returns. A filing cannot tell you who won, and it cannot tell you a ballot was miscounted.

Enforcement is a separate track. The FEC can open a matter, issue advisory opinions and pursue civil penalties. An advisory opinion explains how the law applies to a planned activity. It is not a finding that anyone broke the law.

So when a post cites "FEC records" as proof of fraud, ask what the record shows.

Reading a committee report without misreading the dates

Start at the Campaign finance data | FEC page. You can search by candidate name, committee name or state.

Begin with the committee, not the candidate. Most candidates have one principal campaign committee. Leadership PACs, joint fundraising committees and super PACs file separately, under their own IDs.

Each report covers a set period. Quarterly reports cover three months. Pre-election reports cover the final stretch before a vote. The coverage dates decide whether two numbers can be compared at all.

The most common error is comparing a two-year total to a single quarter. A campaign that raised $10 million over a cycle did not raise $10 million in three months.

Amended reports compound it. A committee can file an amendment that replaces earlier numbers. If a post cites an old total, check whether a later amendment superseded it.

Confirm the period and the version before you repeat a number. See verify an online source for that order of operations.

Finding the race with the FEC elections-by-location tool

Many claims start with a place rather than a committee. Examples include "the Senate race in Pennsylvania." Another example is "the House seat in Georgia." The Find candidates and elections by location | FEC tool maps a location to federal races on the ballot. It can map a state, district or county.

Use it to confirm which candidates were actually running. Viral posts sometimes name a candidate for an office that was never on the ballot, or confuse two districts with similar numbers.

The tool also shows the cycle. Federal races run on a two-year cycle, so a 2026 race has its own candidate list and its own filings. A 2024 filing does not describe a 2026 race.

State races are the exception. Governor, secretary of state and state legislative races are run by the state, and the money is reported under state law.

That money goes to a state campaign finance board or the secretary of state, not to the FEC.

A claim about a "missing FEC filing" in a governor's race is looking in the wrong building.

County clerk result pages and why totals move

County clerks and county election officials run the count. Their result pages are the first public record of actual returns, and they update for days after election night.

Early numbers are partial by design. Some counties post Election Day precincts first and add mail ballots later. Others do the reverse. The mix changes through the night, which is why leads shift.

A claim that "the count was stopped" usually misreads a dashboard refresh. Counting continues. The public page just updates on a schedule as absent, mail and provisional ballots are processed in batches.

A cropped screenshot can hide a timestamp, a partial-count label or a correction. Open the live page or an archived copy instead.

Counties then canvass. They reconcile ballots, review provisional eligibility and produce an official abstract. That abstract, not the election night dashboard, is what gets certified.

For a claim moving fast, see social post verification.

Pennsylvania and Georgia state portals

The Pennsylvania Department of State election returns page at vote.pa.gov publishes statewide and county results after counties report. Pennsylvania counts mail ballots that arrive after Election Day if they are postmarked in time, so totals can shift for days.

Pennsylvania counties run a pre-canvass and canvass in public. That is where mail ballot envelopes are reviewed. Claims about "ballots appearing from nowhere" usually skip this step.

The Georgia Secretary of State election results page at results.sos.ga.gov publishes results and turnout data. After a statewide race, Georgia runs a risk-limiting audit of a ballot sample, comparing paper to machine counts.

Georgia counties certify first, then the state certifies. A claim that a county "refused to certify" needs a check against the county's own meeting record and the state portal. A missed deadline is not a refusal.

Both states publish results by county and often by precinct. That granularity is what lets you test a claim about one precinct without leaning on a statewide total.

When a claim names a county you do not know, use the State and local election offices | USAGov directory to reach the right office.

The Voting and elections | USAGov hub routes readers to the official result source for their state, along with deadlines and registration rules.

Arizona results and the two-stage canvass

Arizona results come from county recorders and election departments, then flow to the secretary of state. The Arizona Secretary of State official results page is at azsos.gov. Maricopa and Pima counties post detailed returns that get quoted constantly online.

Arizona certifies in two stages. Counties canvass and certify their own results first. Then the secretary of state and governor canvass the statewide results, which is the step that makes them official.

That sequence explains the lag. In close races the statewide canvass lands days or weeks after election night, with late-arriving mail ballots counted in between.

Changing county totals are usually mundane. Signature verification, ballot curing and provisional ballot review all take time, and each one adds ballots to the pile.

Arizona also runs post-election audits, including a hand count of a sample of ballots in some counties and a logic and accuracy test before the election. Those records are public.

If a claim names a specific drop box, polling place or ballot batch, ask for the county's own log. Recorders keep chain-of-custody records for ballots and tabulators.

Read statewide numbers from the secretary of state's official results page. If a screenshot's number matches no official total, the screenshot is the problem.

Testing a fundraising or ad-spend claim

Fundraising claims are the easiest to check, because the underlying record is itemized. The Browse Individual contributions | FEC search lists donor name, city, state, employer, amount and date.

Say a post claims a Senate candidate raised most of their money from out of state. Here is the worked example:

Open the committee page on the FEC site and note the committee ID.

Open the individual contributions search and filter to that committee ID and the same two-year cycle.

Export the rows. Sort by the state column. Count the rows that list a state other than the candidate's home state.

Divide that count by the total number of rows. If the result is above half, the claim holds for itemized contributions.

Check the limit. The search covers itemized contributions only. Donations under $200 are not itemized, so a claim about all money can outrun the record.

State the period and the limit when you publish the check.

If the out-of-state share is high but the claim said "most," check the actual percentage. Many viral claims survive on a real number rounded up into something false.

Employer and occupation fields are self-reported. A donor can list a company loosely, and the FEC does not verify each entry. A claim that "this company donated" needs more than a name match.

Ad-spend claims work the same way. Independent expenditures are reported by the spender, not the candidate. The report shows the amount and the race, often not the ad script.

The seven filing misreads behind most false claims

Most false election claims that cite records start with one of a few mistakes. Naming them makes them easier to catch next time.

Each one produces a claim that sounds sourced. The fix is the same each time: open the record, check the dates, and state the limit of what it shows.

See visual verification methods for the wider set of traps.

A short primer on claim triage is in our account verification checklist guide.

One habit covers most cases. Never repeat a number you have not seen in the record yourself. If the record is a county page, open it. If it is an FEC filing, open the filing, not the summary.

Common questions

Does an FEC filing prove a candidate broke the law?

No. A filing is a disclosure of money raised and spent. The FEC can later open an enforcement matter, but the filing itself is not a legal finding.

Why do county totals change after election night?

Counties add mail, absent and provisional ballots in batches after Election Day. The dashboard updates as those batches are processed, so totals move until the canvass ends.

Where do I find official results for Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona?

Use the secretary of state portals for Pennsylvania and Georgia, and the Arizona secretary of state's official results page. County clerk pages hold the underlying returns.

What is a canvass?

A canvass is the official review and reconciliation of ballots after the count. It produces the certified abstract that state offices publish.