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

What to take away

• Match the claim to the record: FEC filings for money, county clerk pages for raw returns, state portals for certified totals.
• FEC reports show money raised and spent. They never show who won a race or whether votes were counted correctly.
• County dashboards post partial returns on election night and update for days, so early leads move. The canvass abstract is the official number.
• Pennsylvania and Georgia publish certified totals through their secretary of state portals. Arizona certifies in two stages, county then state.
• The FEC individual contributions search lists each donor, amount, employer and date, which is the fastest test of a fundraising claim.

Start with the claim, not the record

Every election claim points at one of three records. Money claims point at the Federal Election Commission. Count claims point at a county clerk or county elections office. Certification claims point at a state portal.

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.

For a wider method that sorts claims by the evidence each one needs, see our guide to verify a social media account.

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. Money records show money.

Claim type	Best record	What it proves
Candidate raised $5 million	FEC candidate and committee filings	Reported receipts for a stated period
One donor gave $2,900	Individual contribution records	A listed contribution, amount and date
Super PAC spent on ads	FEC independent expenditure filings	Reported spending, often not the ad script
County flipped to a candidate	County clerk result pages	Precinct and county returns
State certified the winner	Secretary of state portal	Official canvassed totals

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.

1. Open the committee page and note the committee ID.
2. Read the coverage dates before comparing any two totals.
3. Take total receipts from the filing, not from a press release.
4. Check disbursements for ad buys and consulting.
5. Open the filing itself to see the itemized entries behind the totals.

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. Our guide on how to verify an online source walks through 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.

For county-level checks, narrow in three steps: state, then district, then county. You get the candidate list and links to their committees.

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.

• Identify the county and the office named in the claim.
• Open the county clerk or county elections result page, not a screenshot.
• Note the page timestamp and the last update time.
• Check whether the page states how many ballots remain uncounted.
• Compare precinct-level numbers if the claim names a precinct.
• Save the page or a PDF, because dashboards change.
• Look for a posted canvass report once the count finishes.

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.

If a claim is spreading fast and you need to move now, our guide to social post verification is built for that.

Pennsylvania and Georgia state portals

The Pennsylvania secretary of state portal 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 portal 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. 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:

1. Find the candidate's principal committee in the FEC data portal.
2. Open the latest report and note total receipts for the period.
3. Run the individual contributions search for that committee and period.
4. Filter by state and add up the out-of-state total.
5. Compare that total to reported receipts and to the in-state total.

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.

Keep money records and vote records apart. A post that fuses them is usually making a leap neither record supports.

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.

• Comparing different coverage periods as if they were the same window.
• Treating one committee's total as the candidate's total when several committees are involved.
• Reading an amended filing's old version after it was replaced.
• Mixing federal FEC money with state campaign money.
• Treating an advisory opinion request as a finding of wrongdoing.
• Using a screenshot of a county dashboard with no timestamp.
• Reading a partial count as a final count.

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.

For the wider set of traps, including sourcing and correction practice, see our notes on visual verification methods.

A short primer on claim triage is in our account verification checklist guide. It covers what to check first when a post is moving fast.

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.