False claims of election fraud in California's recall election are already spreading - and being debunked
Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
- California will vote on September 14 over whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat.
- Claims of election fraud are spreading online among supporters of the recall.
- Some of the claims have already been debunked.
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Claims of election fraud surrounding California's September 14 election over whether to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have already started to spread.
An analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle found conspiracy theories and other false claims were rampant on the official Facebook page for the recall.
The outlet found almost half of the 47 posts published on August 15 "contained either overtly false claims, references to popular conspiracy theories, or expressions of concern about election rigging in either the body of the post or the comments."
Some election officials in the state are being proactive about the rumors after last year's presidential election was plagued by unsubstantiated claims of fraud.
Janna Haynes, an official from the Sacramento County Elections Office, told KCRA they are working to assure voters the election will be safe and secure in light of some conspiracy theories and claims about Dominion voting machines.
"While we have heard reports in very isolated incidents from other parts of the country that people have hacked into the (Dominion voting) machines," Haynes said, "that is in no way reflective of what we have going on in Sacramento County."
Dominion was a popular target for allies of Donald Trump who made false claims about the company's voting machines.
The New York Times debunked two claims floating around about the recall election. The first was that the ballot envelopes had holes that would help screen for ballots that voted in favor of recalling Newsom.
The Times said the claims spread quickly online, with one Instagram video gaining hundreds of thousands of views before eventually getting a fact check label added to it.
A spokesperson for the California Secretary of State's Office of Election Cybersecurity told The Times the envelope holes were not new and that they helped voters with vision impairments know where to sign.
Another claim spread online concerned a felon who was passed out in a 7-Eleven parking lot. Police were called to the scene and found the man with "a loaded firearm, drugs and thousands of pieces of mail, including more than 300 unopened mail-in ballots," according to The Times.
Despite claims on right-wing sites that the man was trying to help Newsom steal the election, Mark Ponegalek, a public information officer for the Torrance Police Department, told the outlet the claims were "baseless."
Ponegalek said there was no indication the man intended to commit election fraud and may have intended to commit identity fraud instead.
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