Social media posts misleadingly claim a CNN clip shows ballot fraud in Ohio

CLAIM: A CNN broadcast captured an Ohio woman illegally placing multiple ballots into a drop box on Election Day.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. In the video, which is from Oct. 31, 2020, the woman appears to be placing at least three ballots in a drop box as CNN is filming. Election officials and government watchdog groups in Ohio say there’s nothing inherently illegal about placing that many ballots in the box. The only requirement is that the ballots all must be from family members.

THE FACTS: As Ohio voters headed to the polls Tuesday for an off-year election, social media users shared a news clip they claim captures mail ballot fraud in action in the bellwether state.

The CNN clip shows national correspondent Gary Tuchman standing in front of a ballot drop box in the parking lot of Cuyahoga County Board of Elections office while wearing a facemask.

As he’s speaking to the camera, a woman pulls up in a minivan and begins placing some of the papers she has in her hand into the ballot box. Tuchman jokingly asks if she voted for Ronald Regan or Jimmy Carter, to which she responds, “Carter.”

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“CNN accidentally caught a woman stuffing a ballot box,” the text over the brief clip reads. “Watch how quick they pan away when they realize what she’s doing.”

“Nothing to see here folks,” wrote one Instagram user who shared the video.

But there’s nothing to suggest the woman, who is not identified on the clip, was doing anything suspicious under state law, said local election officials and government watchdog groups.

They say she’s holding at least three ballots, which is within her legal right to submit, so long as they’re from approved family members.

The video also dates to 2020 and isn’t from the current election, as the posts seem to imply.

Indeed CNN’s chyron running along the bottom of the video reads, “Trump, Biden vie for Ohio with 2.5M votes already cast,” showing it was from when then President Donald Trump lost his bid for re-election to Joe Biden.

Anthony Perlatti, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said the maroon-colored design of the state’s ballot return envelope can be readily seen on the paper she’s holding in her right hand and the two in her left hand.

The other papers don’t appear to be ballots, he said.

Ohio law permits people to hand in completed absentee, or mail, ballots for relatives, including their spouse, father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, son, daughter, adopting parent, adopted child, stepparent, stepchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, or niece.

Melanie Amato, a spokesperson for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, agreed that an individual dropping off two or three absentee ballots isn’t itself a crime.

“Can’t say what is happening here, BUT she is not doing anything illegal IF she is returning ballots from family members,” she wrote in an email.

Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, added that in 2020, while the coronavirus pandemic was at its peak, many Ohio residents opted to vote absentee with one person in a family or household dropping off the ballots.

“I wouldn’t assume that the voter was doing something wrong,” she wrote in an email. “Voters drop off ballots for parents, adult children, and spouses.”

Tom Sutton, a political science professor at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, a Cleveland suburb, noted that state law doesn’t limit how many ballots from family members can be deposited at one time.

A person could, theoretically, deliver one or more ballots for each of the 19 categories of family members listed under state law, he said.

CNN spokesperson Emily Kuhn, meanwhile, confirmed the video was from the cable news network’s election coverage in 2020.

But due to social distancing rules in effect at the time and the angle of his live shot, Tuchman didn’t see the woman putting anything into the box while live on air, she said.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.