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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRumors going viral ahead of CA recall: #1 holes in ballot envelope to weed out "yes" votes
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/technology/recall-election-california-rumors-newsom.htmlenvelopes were being used to screen out votes that say yes to a recall.
On Aug. 19, a woman posted a video on Instagram of herself placing her California special election ballot in an envelope.
You have to pay attention to these two holes that are in front of the envelope, she said, bringing the holes close to the camera so viewers could see them. You can see if someone has voted yes to recall Newsom. This is very sketchy and irresponsible in my opinion, but this is asking for fraud.
The idea that the ballot envelopes holes were being used to weed out the votes of those who wanted Gov. Newsom, a Democrat, to be recalled rapidly spread online, according to a review by The New York Times.
The Instagram video collected nearly half a million views. On the messaging app Telegram, posts that said California was rigging the special election amassed nearly 200,000 views. And an article about the ballot holes on the far-right site The Gateway Pundit reached up to 626,000 people on Facebook, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned social media analytics tool.
State and local officials said the ballot holes were not new and were not being used nefariously. The holes were placed in the envelope, on either end of a signature line, to help low-vision voters know where to sign it, said Jenna Dresner, a spokeswoman for the California Secretary of States Office of Election Cybersecurity.
msongs
(67,199 posts)Lovie777
(11,992 posts)that's all they got. I'm sick of them.
BigmanPigman
(51,432 posts)Maru Kitteh
(28,303 posts)confirmation bias. Idiots.
Caliman73
(11,694 posts)330 million in the US. The video got 500,000 views. That is 0.0125% of the population of California and 0.0015% of the US population.
Conservatives want to believe anything that will save them from the defeat that is coming. Otherwise, it is nothing. A blip.
BigmanPigman
(51,432 posts)Do you know how much this ludicrous BS is costing the taxpayers?
Kaleva
(36,147 posts)MustLoveBeagles
(11,563 posts)This will be used as an excuse to declare fraud.
Demovictory9
(32,324 posts)LisaL
(44,962 posts)NT
Florida Bull
(103 posts)As if California is a deep Red Trump-loving state. These people are so delusional, they will believe anything and everything they want.
I also remember a Trump supporter claiming Hispanics are all Trump supporters, which is obviously false. The polls disprove that claim. Trump deliberately stole Hispanic children from their families (an international crime), purged Hispanics from the voter rolls and the U.S. Census, called Mexican-Americans rapists and referred to them as an infestation. But, his supporters freak out if you call him a racist.
jeffreyi
(1,934 posts)sinkingfeeling
(51,279 posts)ballot up and down in the envelope. Simple solution would be to turn the ballot over before putting it in.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)LisaL
(44,962 posts)NT
LiberalFighter
(50,504 posts)The reason the envelopes have holes in them is to let elections officials know when an envelope is empty, which helps guard against an envelope being discarded after the signature is verified but before the ballot has been removed. Some recall proponents contend that the holes can reveal whether youve voted in favor of removing Newsom, suggesting that the governors supporters in county elections offices may toss those votes in the trash (a felony punishable by up to three years in prison). If this strikes you as a real issue, you can insert the ballot into the envelope facing the other direction or fold it the opposite way.
Retrograde
(10,073 posts)Or put an extra piece of paper in to block the holes. Or vote in person.
Last election my county had over 800K ballots cast: I don't think the registrar's office has enough time to do all these manipulations on individual ballots.
cadoman
(792 posts)Waaaah my vote is showing. Waaahhhh!