Unfounded claims of homeless voter fraud roil L.A. We went to Skid Row for answers
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Since the Los Angeles mayoral primary election last week, unsupported conspiracy claims have flooded social media about how reality TV personality Spencer Pratt fell out of the race.One claiming that Pratt received zero votes in an update on election night was quickly debunked by the U.S.
attorney’s office.Now another story has taken root: that the ballots of homeless people are somehow fraudulently responsible for his loss.Many spreading this story are doing so with little or no evidence of wrongdoing and are instead relying on information that is false or can be explained by more benign reasons.
One TikTok user, laneedsspencerpratt, posted video interviews with three individuals identified as Skid Row residents who said they were paid a few dollars to vote for Mayor Karen Bass.The incumbent came in first to advance to the runoff with Councilmember Nithya Raman.
Pratt, who had an early lead over Raman, was bumped to third place as more votes were counted.“How much they pay you?” the interviewer asked a woman in one video.“Five dollars,” the woman responded.
“They told you to vote for Karen Bass or Nithya Raman?”“Karen Bass,” she said.L.A.
County election officials responded on X to the videos, saying that there was no evidence the woman voted for Bass for $5 and that the woman is registered to vote in Inglewood, a separate city adjacent to Los Angeles.Alex Stack, a Bass campaign spokesman, said in a statement the idea that Bass’ campaign paid for votes is “absurd.”“It’s the same type of false election misinformation and disinformation put out by Trump after he lost the presidency,” he said.“The Bass campaign concurs with the LA County Registrar saying this issue is false.”On Wednesday, Times reporters went to the area where those TikTok videos were filmed, but did not find those three individuals.
Experts said one-off cases like those, even ...