Welcome to Disinfo Bulletin, your daily update from the EDMO network. Today's most relevant stories: 

🗳️ Disinformation about the electoral process expands. In Spain, conspiracy theories about an alleged “information blackout” that would allow the government to rig the results are circulating. In the country, the polls will close at 20:00 on Sunday, but preliminary results will be made available from 23:00, due to EU regulations requiring all member states to finish voting first, with Italy being the last. False claims suggest that this would be a deliberate “media blackout” to manipulate voter turnout and influence the European elections.

In the Netherlands – where the elections took place yesterday – false claims of imminent election fraud in Germany have been circulating on social media in recent weeks, exploiting a serious human error to allege attempts to tamper with votes. In fact, in a Bavarian city, old ballots from the 2019 European elections were mistakenly sent instead of blank ones, prompting fraud accusations. However, an investigation ruled out any intent to influence the election. In a recent report, EDMO warned that potential counting issues or other incidents related to the voting procedures could lead to disinformation campaigns about the electoral process, a trend already detected in previous elections.

As repeatedly reported in this newsletter, there is also a broader effort to push abstentionism in various EU countries.


👨🏼‍💼 😡 Disinformation using political parties and their leaders to question the fairness of democratic processes. According to EURACTIV Slovakia, in the run-up to the 2024 European elections, Slovak opposition leader Michal Šimečka has been targeted by disinformation campaigns portraying him as a foreign agent and alleging his involvement in coup planning, spreading conspiracies about the West allegedly paying the opposition party to stage coups (thus trying to rig elections or subvert their outcomes). Another highly significant false story about Šimečka allegedly talking about rigged elections was circulated in Slovakia a few days before the national parliamentary election in September 2023, using artificially generated audio.

In Ireland, where the vote takes place today, local fact-checking units report that non-white candidates in Ireland have faced a surge of misinformation and racist abuse. Fringe anti-immigration groups falsely claim these candidates are part of a power grab, also alleging that non-citizens can vote in elections. The Immigrant Council of Ireland reports threats, vandalism, and public confrontations.

At the same time, a recurring false story in Spain re-emerged claiming that Volt, a registered political party since 2019, is a "fake party" designed to confuse voters or divert votes from Vox, allegedly because its symbol is placed near Vox’s one on the ballots. These claims are baseless: Volt, a pan-European party, has participated in multiple elections and the placement of ballots follows an order based on the submission of candidacies.

🤖 📹 Deepfake video falsely attributes statements to US State Department official about the war in Ukraine. In Greece, a video altered using AI tools falsely attributed statements to U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, claiming he justified a Ukrainian attack on Belgorod by stating there were no civilians in the city. The video, which manipulated a press conference about the Israel-Hamas conflict, has been debunked by multiple sources, including Russian ones. A similar false story – using the same tactic to allege that a White House spokesperson talked about why the US supports Nazism in Ukraine – was one of the most widespread false stories in the EU in May.

If you have suggestions, comments or requests about this newsletter, you can write to edmo.tfeu2024@eui.eu

What is a “disinformation narrative”? Please find here a short methodological note about the definition used by the EDMO fact-checking network.

The Disinfo Bulletin gathers material from the inputs of the EDMO fact-checking network, as well as a recently launched public database from the EFCSN network (Elections 24 Check), and the various national EDMO hubs, including community initiatives and insights from individual fact-checking organizations.

Photo source: European Parliament