Video showing ballot collection does not show evidence of fraud

CLAIM: A video showing two men collecting ballots from a drop box a day after Election Day is evidence of “cheating.”

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder County Clerk’s office said the men in the video are staff picking up ballots so they can be counted. 

THE FACTS: Ahead of the U.S. general election, election officials in Los Angeles County installed more than 400 ballot collection boxes where voters could drop off ballots they had received in the mail.

The ballot boxes were available to receive ballots from Oct. 5 until Nov. 3 at 8 p.m., according to information on the website of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder County Clerk’s office.

Social media users are sharing a video of two men collecting ballots from one of the boxes on the day after the election as evidence of “cheating.”

In the video, a woman can be heard questioning the two individuals and expressing disbelief that ballots are still being collected. “I thought they collected them all,” she says. “Wait, but how come they already called the state?” She then asks, “Are you guys official election guys?” One of the men shows an ID around his neck and says he works for the county.   

The video was shared on various social media sites, including on TikTok with the caption, “The cheating is unreal!!!” A post on Instagram with over half a million views shared the video with the caption, “The lies, the cheating, the hypocrisy must be exposed.”

But the video does not show evidence of anything nefarious. 

Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder County Clerk’s office, which oversees elections for the county, told The Associated Press that the two men were staff from his office carrying out a scheduled pickup. 

“All vote by mail ballot drop boxes were closed and locked at 8 PM on Election Day. Ballots from all boxes throughout the County were picked up the following day,” Sanchez wrote in an email to the AP.

“The ballots are valid ballots and will be processed and counted in our Official Election Canvass,” Sanchez wrote.  

Furthermore, under California law, voters can mail back vote-by-mail ballots as late as Election Day. Election officials must count those ballots as long as they have a Nov. 3 postmark and arrive within 17 days of the election. 

As soon as polls closed in California on Election Day, the AP declared Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden the winner of the state’s 55 electoral votes. Though voting results had not yet been posted, AP relied on early voting statistics and its AP VoteCast, a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for AP, to confirm the state would continue its longstanding political trend of favoring Democratic presidential candidates.

Election officials count all votes regardless of whether races have been called. In California, officials must determine the official vote count for presidential races no later than 32 days after the election. 

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This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.

Here’s more information on Facebook’s fact-checking program: https://www.facebook.com/help/195230715813153