On May 3, 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent a complaint about PolitiFact to the International Fact-Checking Network. That complaint follows in .pdf format.
PolitiFact Vermont Ignores Errors
On April 24, 2019 PolitiFact Vermont published a fact check of a claim by Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders said from the earliest, Vermont placed no restrictions on voting:
PolitiFact used that entire quotation in its header material, placing it next to its “True” “Truth-O-Meter” graphic.
This is the true part of the statement: “In my own state of Vermont … people in jail can vote.”
Vermont’s early constitution set limitations on voting according to sex, age, character and citizenship. Vermont’s modern constitution continues to have limitations according to age, character and citizenship. Those facts notwithstanding, PolitiFact included the following in its summary:
The Vermont Constitution requires people to be of "quiet and peaceable behavior," but otherwise places no restrictions on who can vote.
The summary overlooks modern restrictions according to age and citizenship while acknowledging the limitation based on character.
I pointed out these problems to PolitiFact using the truthometer@politifact.com email address PolitiFact suggests to those who would point out errors. As of May 2, 2019, PolitiFact Vermont had not replied to my message and made no apparent move to address any of the errors in its fact check.
Those errors include a source list link to a modern version of Vermont’s constitution incorrectly labeled as Vermont’s 1793 constitution (also mentioned in my email to truthometer@politifact.com).
Sincerely,
Bryan W. White
Editor, Zebra Fact Check
Correction Sept. 28, 2019: When published, this item said the complaint from Zebra Fact Check was sent on April 3, 2019. That date was wrong. We replaced the incorrect date with the correct date, May 3, 2019.
Correction Feb. 14, 2020: When we did the Sept. 28, 2019 correction described above, we neglected to fix the incorrect date in the title. This correction fixes that problem and updates the .pdf file embed.