Orange County officials on Election Day were investigating allegations of a fake vote center in Westminster after video began circulating on social media of a handmade “Vote Here” sign outside what appeared to be the campaign headquarters of Republican Westminster Vice Mayor Kimberly Ho.
The video taken by Instagram user its.ty_guys also shows two staff members carrying a box with papers in it outside Apogee International. Another video shows officers standing outside the business.
“It clearly was an operation of at least two campaigns, Republican candidates, and it is very preliminary but it appears as if some individuals came with their original unopened ballot that was sent to them from the Registrar, on which they were seeking help, or at least wanted to designate somebody to return their ballot,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer told KTLA.
Spitzer said allegations were made that there were ballots that had been torn up, but investigators believe the damaged papers seen in the video were only the outside envelopes sent by the Registrar of Voters.
“So we’ve at least concluded there’s been no destruction of actual ballots with candidates’ names on them, just the exterior envelope from the original mailing by the Registrar,” Spitzer said.
Spitzer added that his office was looking into “whether it came into the umbrella of ballot harvesting.” Ballot harvesting is a practice that involves campaigns or political parties collecting ballots from supporters and returning them to county election offices.
“If we thought there was something on its face that was particularly nefarious or improper, we would have shut it down,” Spitzer said.
An attorney for the Ho campaign told the Los Angeles Times that people were coming there to drop off ballots and the office was helping “advise” people on how to vote bridging a cultural barrier with the Vietnamese community.
The Times said that after the video was posted, one of its reporters found a “Vote Here” sign discarded behind the building. It’s unclear who put it there.
A spokesperson for the Orange County Registrar’s Office said the agency was investigating the reports in the video with the DA’s Office and couldn’t disclose further details, but said the location seen in the video is not an official voting site.
