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  • 2020-10-12 (xsd:date)
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  • Did California Republicans Set Up Fake Ballot Drop Boxes? (en)
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  • A controversy broke out in the fall of 2020 when California Republicans set up their own ballot drop-off boxes for voters to leave mail-in ballots for the November general election. The controversy initially circulated around an Oct. 8, 2020, tweet posted by Jordan Tygh, a regional field director for the California GOP. Tygh’s tweet contained a photograph of him standing in front of a dark gray box with a sign that said, OFFICIAL BALLOT DROP OFF BOX. The post was later removed by Twitter, according to Tygh, but an archived version remains viewable. As Los Angeles TV news station KTTV detailed in a Feb. 10, 2021, story, Tygh's tweet caught him off guard by going viral for all the wrong reasons (we will explain more below.) The online fury over the tweet and the drop boxes prompted Snopes readers in October 2020 to ask whether it was true that the California Republicans had installed the unofficial mail-in ballot drop boxes. The California GOP acknowledged that it owned the boxes. And the California secretary of state and attorney general had responded with forceful statements that such unauthorized ballot drop boxes were illegal, setting up what appeared to be a political game of chicken. Then-California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, during an Oct. 12 news conference, said multiple drop boxes had been installed in Fresno, Los Angeles, and Orange counties. Padilla’s office and then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra issued cease-and-desist letters to state and county Republican parties. Ballot collection, sometimes referred to as ballot harvesting, is the practice of a voter designating a third party to deliver a mail-in ballot to election officials. It’s legal in many states, including California. What was not legal, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, is posing as an election officer and handling, counting, or canvassing of any ballots by anyone who isn’t an election officer. Violating the law is a felony that could result in two to four years in prison, if a person is convicted, officials had stated. Election officials ordered California Republicans to remove the unauthorized boxes by Oct. 15, with Becerra warning that his office would take legal action. Without equivocation, Becerra had stated, the drop boxes set up by California Republicans are illegal. He added, If you participate in those activities, you are knowingly engaging in activity that is against the law. A judge on Oct. 21 rejected state officials’ efforts to get California Republicans to comply with a subpoena seeking information about the boxes and the voters who had used them. The GOP meanwhile blamed the official labels on some of the boxes as the work of overzealous volunteers and stated those labels had been replaced. In a news conference held Oct. 16, Padilla and Becerra told reporters that the California GOP had, agreed not to place unauthorized ballot drop boxes outdoors, leave drop boxes unattended or present them as official, the party said it will continue to accept ballots delivered by voters to local party offices and secure them in boxes attended by staff or volunteers, per NPR. The California GOP denied they had been leaving the ballot boxes unattended to begin with, stating in a tweet, We can't agree to not do something we weren't doing to begin with. In late November 2020, Becerra’s office dropped the lawsuit that sought information on voters who had put ballots in the California GOP drop boxes, telling reporters in a statement, We are confident that this election was safe and secure in California — as it was across the country. In the aftermath of the controversy, Tygh told KTTV that the initial furor over his tweet had heavy negative consequences for him personally. As the California GOP and state officials pointed fingers at each other, Tygh, a Coast Guard veteran, told KTTV he was caught in the middle. Here's what Tygh told KTTV: Nevertheless, Tygh told KTTV, the controversy sullied his reputation. A lot of people won’t touch me, I’ve had all these false accusations, it’s affected my social life, people think I’m a criminal, Tygh told KTTV. I would rather lose an election than cheat one, when I joined the military I took an oath to defend the constitution, and even though I’m out now, the oath still stands. (en)
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