Hundreds of live mail ballots were photographed piled in an open hallway at a Skid Row homeless shelter, and the shelter blames a mailroom too small to keep them locked away.
Story Snapshot
- Reporters saw hundreds of ballots stacked in an open hallway at The Midnight Mission on Skid Row during a visit on October 13.
- Public records list 1,160 registered voters at the shelter’s address, 601 South San Pedro Street.
- The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles confirmed an investigation into ballots on Skid Row, but would not discuss the shelter by name.
- The shelter says its rule is to lock ballots up, and blames limited mailroom space for what was seen.
- Earlier reports said the shelter’s website listed only 120 beds; its spokeswoman now says it has 296.
Ballots Piled in an Open Hallway
On Monday, October 26, reports revealed that hundreds of mail ballots had been sitting in an open hallway at The Midnight Mission, a shelter in downtown Los Angeles that offers meals and mail service to homeless people. Reporters said they authenticated a photo of the ballots and confirmed the scene for themselves during a visit on Tuesday, October 13. These were live ballots, meaning real, official ballots mailed to voters for the November 3 election, not samples.
Bill Essayli, the U.S. Attorney for the Los Angeles area, confirmed that federal prosecutors are investigating election ballots on Skid Row, according to reports. He declined to talk about The Midnight Mission in particular. The shelter, for its part, says the ballots should not have been out in the open, and it points to a mailroom that simply runs out of room.
What the Shelter Says
Georgia Hawley, the mission’s chief communications officer, said, “Our standard procedure is to secure election ballots behind locked doors until they are distributed to their intended recipients.” She also said, “I personally confirmed that ballots were being stored securely when I visited our mail center.”
Hawley said the mailroom has limited space, so staff must receive, sort and hand out deliveries all day long. That can leave mail sitting out for a time. But a shelter that handles live ballots for a federal election needs tighter controls than “we ran out of room.” The photos show a locked-door policy that was not followed that day.
Why the Voter Count Draws Attention
Public voter files list 1,160 registered voters at the shelter’s address. Earlier reports said the shelter’s website listed only 120 beds, while Hawley has said the mission has 296. She has also said far more people use it than sleep there. People living on the street come to get mail, take a shower and eat, with 500 to 1,000 people showing up for each meal.
California law lets homeless people register to vote using the place where they spend most of their time, such as a shelter. In June, a county election spokesman said voter records do not show whether a person lives at a shelter or gets services there. And in May, a woman was charged with paying homeless people on Skid Row to register to vote. The county said then that “additional guardrails are in place” to keep elections sound when that kind of activity turns up.
Scott Meyers, a Republican lawyer running for Congress in California’s 30th District, put it bluntly. “We’re treating ballots like junk mail,” he said. “These are pieces of gold. This is our democracy.”
Why Chain of Custody Matters
Chain of custody is the paper trail that shows who held each ballot, and when, from the moment it is printed to the moment it is counted. Federal election guidance says every handoff should be written down, ideally checked by two witnesses, with strict limits on who can touch the ballots.
No one has shown that a single ballot from the hallway was stolen or changed. But the whole point of chain-of-custody rules is to make sure officials can prove nothing went wrong. When ballots sit in an open hallway, that proof gets much harder to give. That is why a storage slip like this one can justify an investigation even without any proof of fraud.
A Pattern Conservatives Have Warned About
Republicans have warned for years about California’s heavy use of mail-in voting and its loose address rules for homeless voters. The county says its safeguards work, and federal prosecutors have not announced any charges tied to the hallway ballots. With the election set for Tuesday, November 3, voters in Los Angeles will be watching for what the investigation turns up.
Sources:
thegatewaypundit.com, yahoo.com, redstate.com, libertyonenews.com, latimes.com, nbclosangeles.com, thehill.com, eac.gov
