Spreadsheet showing Michigan voter data isn't proof of election fraud

Recent social media posts alleging election fraud in Michigan have gone viral as millions of Americans cast their ballots. 

The posts show a spreadsheet with Wayne County, Michigan, addresses and voter ID numbers. In the image, a highlighted voter ID column appears to show the same ID assigned to multiple addressees, suggesting one person has cast multiple votes. 

One X post with more than 8 million views reads, “Michigan: One voter ID with 29 separate ‘votes’ already. Yeah nothing wrong there, all good, move along …” 

The spreadsheet image and related election fraud claims have been shared on various platforms, including Threads, TikTok and Reddit.

THE QUESTION

Does the spreadsheet show evidence of voter fraud in Michigan, as social posts imply?

THE SOURCES

• Michigan Secretary of State
• Wayne County, Michigan, clerk of courts
• Lara Trump X post

THE ANSWER

No, this spreadsheet doesn’t show evidence of voter fraud in Michigan. A formatting error in the data involving old addresses for individual voters gave the appearance of duplicate votes, but no one actually voted multiple times. The error has since been corrected. 

WHAT WE FOUND

The image is not proof that any individual in Wayne County, Michigan, cast multiple votes. 

A formatting error in the state’s voter registration database mistakenly made it look like people voted multiple times, Michigan election officials and Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump confirmed. The error has since been corrected and each voter listed in the report only voted once in the election, officials said.

The image in the viral posts comes from the Qualified Voter File (QVF), Michigan’s voter database, which includes the personal information and voting history of registered voters.

Former Michigan attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno, a Republican, initially shared the image with the highlighted column after obtaining it through a Freedom of Information Act request. DePerno claimed the report showed “114,545 Michigan voters who have cast 279,113 ballots from multiple addresses across the state.” DePerno is facing criminal charges for the mishandling of voter equipment following the 2020 election.

Samantha May, a spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office, explained to VERIFY that when the report was exported, it included each prior address linked to a voter, causing the same ballot to appear on multiple lines associated with one unique voter ID. That’s why it appeared as if people voted multiple times when that wasn’t actually what happened.

Whenever a voter moves, the associated address change is added as part of the history of the voter record in the database. A person’s voter registration will be active only at the last address at which they registered. The QVF doesn’t allow for multiple ballots to be accepted for the same voter or Voter ID, Michigan’s Secretary of State website says. 

“Each of these voters only had one vote recorded for this election. This error in the data export process has been corrected and these erroneous extra lines no longer appear on the report,” May told VERIFY.

Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and daughter-in-law of Donald Trump, also addressed and debunked the rumor, writing on X, “Our election integrity team received reports of thousands of duplicate ballots in Michigan. We immediately investigated and have CONFIRMED that it was a glitch in the system - these duplicates were not and WILL NOT BE COUNTED.  We are on it and protecting the vote!”

The Michigan Secretary of State’s Office debunked the claim on its website after DePerno’s post went viral, stating, “A recent social media post has taken a data report that included formatting errors to incorrectly claim that individual voters were casting multiple ballots in this election. The data error has been identified and corrected.”

A spokesperson for the clerk’s office in Wayne County, Michigan, where the duplicate votes were allegedly cast, also confirmed to VERIFY the formatting error has been corrected.