Some mail-in ballot envelopes for California‘s gubernatorial recall election have two holes in them that allow the voter’s choice to be seen, leading the former acting director of National Intelligence to accuse Gov. Gavin Newsom of “cheating.”
California voter Jennifer Asper showed that the two-hole punch in her envelope could let bad actors discard ballots based on the voter’s choice to remove or retain Newsom.
Asper called the holes “sketchy,” “irresponsible” and “asking for fraud.”
Former Trump administration official Richard Grenell responded to the tweet, saying that Newsom “needs to be asked if his team did this on purpose.”
“This is cheating,” he said.
The Los Angeles County clerk and voter registrar responded to the concerns with a non-answer.
“This has been part of the envelope design for years,” the clerk’s Twitter account posted on Thursday.
“The holes serve both an accessibility purpose and a quality assurance purpose after the fact to validate no voted ballots are left unprocessed; an established, recommended practice,” it claimed.
The clerk did not address concerns about fraud but instead ensured voters that the “commonly used envelope design does not interfere with postal or sorting equipment,” WDBD reported.
Ballot-harvesting is legal throughout the state, which allows third-party activists and political operatives to go door-to-door gathering votes.
Los Angeles has come under fire in the past for having drastically out-of-date voter-registration rolls and for allowing activists to register homeless individuals and solicit their votes.
By sheer coincidence, Newsom recently encouraged more homeless people from out of state to come to California.
Although Los Angeles County claimed the two-holed envelopes are commonly used, voters outside LA reported that they did not have holes on their ballots.
That’s not the concern shared by Asper and others.
The concern is that anyone in the envelope’s chain of custody with malicious intentions can massively alter the election’s results.
Grenell did not appreciate the clerk’s response.
Assurance that someone can see who voted YES to recall @GavinNewsom so someone can toss that ballot?
And while I have you, stop sending ballots to dead people and non-residents of California.
The County’s rolls are a mess. Clean them up. https://t.co/mbpvZszArW
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) August 20, 2021
Video has already surfaced that shows two women stealing ballots.
? Valley Village, CA: 2 women caught on camera opening a mailbox and stealing stack of California Gov. recall election ballots.
(Video from Police Frequency Telegram channel)pic.twitter.com/C7HrgL6r70
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) August 19, 2021
