Rumors going viral ahead of CA recall: #1 holes in ballot envelope to weed out "yes" votes

[Demovictory9]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/technology/recall-election-california-rumors-newsom.html

envelopes 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 envelope’s 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 State’s Office of Election Cybersecurity.

[msongs]

1. "yes" must think it's gonna lose nt

[Lovie777]

2. Lies, lies, lies, lies . . .

that's all they got. I'm sick of them.

[BigmanPigman]

5. And yet everyone automatically believes them.

[Maru Kitteh]

15. Well what they lack for in critical thinking, they will make up for in

confirmation bias. Idiots.

[Caliman73]

16. There are almost 40 million people in California alone...

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]

17. I like those numbers.

Do you know how much this ludicrous BS is costing the taxpayers?

[Kaleva]

18. Yes, the percentages are very tiny. If it wasn't for DU, I wouldn't have heard about these "holes"

[MustLoveBeagles]

3. So if the recall fails

This will be used as an excuse to declare fraud.

[Demovictory9]

4. Comments after articles about recall: "recall will win unless they cheat"

[LisaL]

10. They are determined to copy their dear leader.

NT

[Florida Bull]

12. As if

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]

6. Puleeze.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. I saw the IG video. The lady really works hard to get a part of 'yes' to show by moving the

ballot up and down in the envelope. Simple solution would be to turn the ballot over before putting it in.

[Hekate]

8. Clearly these alert geniuses should not bother voting in a rigged system. My gods. nt

[LisaL]

9. My feelings exactly.

NT

[LiberalFighter]

11. The purpose of the holes as explained by the LA Times.

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 you’ve voted in favor of removing Newsom, suggesting that the governor’s 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]

13. So put the ballot in the envelope so that the votes don't show through the holes

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]

14. it's so sad to see them grasping at straws like this

Waaaah my vote is showing. Waaahhhh!