Back to Africa Check

Results of Star newspaper’s opinion poll of governor race in Kenya’s Taita Taveta county? No, graphic fake

A graphic posted on Facebook appears to show the results of an opinion poll for the governorship race in Taita Taveta county in Kenya. 

The county is 330 kilometres to the southeast of Nairobi. 

“If the elections were held today, who would you vote for as governor?” reads the question. 

One graphic was posted on 3 June 2022 and the other on 4 June. Kenya will hold general elections on 9 August.

The rankings show John Mruttu (32%), Danson Mwazo (22%), Andrew Mwadime (21%), Grantone Samboja (15%), Patience Nyange (6%) and others (4%). 

The graphic has the logo of the Star, a Kenyan newspaper, and includes the words “Star Illustrated” and “Radio Africa Group poll”. The Star is owned by Radio Africa Group

The Star usually runs opinion polls on trending topics in Kenya on its website. But did they really publish this infographic on the Taita Taveta gubernatorial race? We checked.

GovernorVote_Fake

‘We only publish factual infographics’

On 3 June, The Star posted the graphic on its verified Facebook page, stamped “FAKE”.

It wrote: “Please note that this infographic is not from The Star Publications. Treat it as Fake News. At the Star, we only publish credible and factual infographics.”

Africa Check has previously debunked fake polls on election races in other counties of Kenya.

Republish our content for free

We believe that everyone needs the facts.

You can republish the text of this article free of charge, both online and in print. However, we ask that you pay attention to these simple guidelines. In a nutshell:

1. Do not include images, as in most cases we do not own the copyright.

2. Please do not edit the article.

3. Make sure you credit "Africa Check" in the byline and don't forget to mention that the article was originally published on africacheck.org.

For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false

A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?

Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.

Publishers guide

Africa Check teams up with Facebook

Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.

The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.

You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.

Add new comment

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
limit: 600 characters

Want to keep reading our fact-checks?

We will never charge you for verified, reliable information. Help us keep it that way by supporting our work.

Become a newsletter subscriber

Support independent fact-checking in Africa.