A number of posts on social media have been claiming the number of votes in Wisconsin exceeds the number of registered voters. One widely circulated Facebook post has the following caption:

“BREAKING: Wisconsin has more votes than people who are registered to vote. Total number of registered voters: 3,129,000 Total number of votes cast: 3,239,920 This is direct evidence of fraud.”

This claim is false. 

The number 3,129,000 comes from reported voting and registration data from the 2018 midterm election. 

According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, as of November 1, Wisconsin has 3,684,726 registered voters in the state. In a tweet posted Wednesday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission addressed these false claims and also noted that because voters are allowed to register to vote on Election Day in Wisconsin, the number of registered voters reported by certain counties are not a true reflection of registration.

Wisconsin Elections @WI_Elections

The State of Wisconsin had 3,684,726 active registered voters on November 1, 2020. Wisconsin has election day registration, which means that the VR numbers some counties report in their unofficial results are not a true indictor of registration. Voter Registration Statistics | Wisconsin Elections Commissionelections.wi.gov

November 4th 2020

501 Retweets1,308 Likes

This tweet thread by Craig Gilbert, the Washington bureau chief for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, explains the voter registration numbers further. He describes voter turnout as “high” but not a record in a subsequent tweet.

Craig Gilbert @WisVoter

Some on Twitter and elsewhere getting hung up on whether turnout in WI was suspiciously high (almost 3.3M) given number of reg. voters on Nov. 1 (3.7K). But WI has election-registration, and historically 300-500K register on el. day. So nothing crazy about WI turnout 1/3

November 5th 2020

535 Retweets2,991 Likes

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Photograph of Wisconsin voters by Sara Stathas/Washington Post/Getty Images.