PROVO — Mailboxes have been flooded in Provo with so-called "misinformation alerts" and "fact-or-fiction" fliers from the two candidates for mayor.

Incumbent Lewis Billings and challenger Dave Bailey are spending their record-setting campaign treasures to send out the information.

So what's a resident to believe?

Which claims are true and which ones are false?

A look at bits of information put out by the campaigns — plus some from an anti-establishment third party that is interjecting itself into Provo races — shows how voters could become confused.

For example, here's a claim by the Bailey campaign: "Provo's violent crime up 27 percent from last year. (See 2005 FBI report.)"

First, the math is wrong. The FBI's annual Crime in the United States report showed violent crime in Provo rose 32 percent from 2003 to '04. The Bailey campaign, like the Deseret Morning News in June, reported that number without checking the math.

Of course, an increase of 32 percent instead of 27 percent appears to bolster Bailey's argument that Provo needs more police officers and to pay them better, but there is a larger story here. First, violent crime is actually down 6 percent since the last time Bailey ran against Billings:

• 2001 — 159 violent crimes were reported

• 2002 — 165

• 2003 — 114

• 2004 — 150

And, as the Deseret Morning News pointed out in June, the FBI's reported increase in violent crimes was already misleading because Provo loosened its definition of aggravated assaults in 2004: In '03, a simple fistfight was listed as an assault. In '04, it was upgraded to an aggravated assault, which previously included only assaults involving the use of a weapon.

Provo resisted changing its definition, but was forced to follow other cities because it installed a new computer system that uses definitions set by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

Finally, according to the FBI reports, overall crime in Provo fell 4 percent between 2003 and 2004.

Here's another Bailey campaign claim: "911 24-hour 7-day Call Center with only (15) trained staff . . . ." And here's a claim on the same topic by the Billings campaign: "The 911 Emergency Dispatch Center currently has 31 trained staff authorized."

This response from Billings came in a campaign flyer titled "Fiction has its place. But not in the race for mayor." However, this is a case of candidates and campaigns comparing apples to oranges, making it difficult for voters to determine which is correct. The answer here, strictly speaking, is neither.