Homeless people on LA's Skid Row are paid to forge signatures of registered voters on ballot petitions: OMG

A new video released by O'Keefe Media Group with the Citizen Justice League has revealed homeless people on Skid Row being paid to forge signatures and use the names and addresses of registered voters for ballot petitions. 

These homeless people are paid $2 to $3 per form to sign as a real registered voter, James O’Keefe said. He said that the names and addresses of thousands of registered voters were found being handed out to the homeless. "The fraudulent petition circulator pulls out a list of names so that the homeless person can enter the name, address, and signature of a registered voter in Southern California," he said, with the process of registering a homeless person to vote being skipped.

One undercover reporter was given the name Joseph Albright to use when filling out a form, as well as the voter’s address. One of the petitioners told the reporter that if they went to other petitioners, they would get another $3 from each of them to fill out forms fraudulently. 

One of the petition circulators told an undercover reporter, "You only write what I tell you to write," and, "If you mess up, I can’t get paid." 

Such actions violate California state law, including Elections Code §18613, which makes it illegal to sign another person’s name on a petition, and Penal Code §470, which prohibits forgery.

O’Keefe went to the homes of some of the people whose names were being used with journalist Cam Higby. At the address registered to Vicki Walker, a woman whose name was given to a homeless person to use, a man answered and said that no person by the name lived there, and that he had lived there for nearly a decade and received mail for Vicki Walker, including election ballots. 

The man said he feels "really weird when I get the voting ballot. Cause like, you know, obviously that’s fraudulent." 

At another home of a person whose name was used, Paul Sun, Sun’s wife said, "what if Paul did want to sign for that and now he can’t, and now it’s showing up as fraud?"

The man who signed as Paul Sun was asked why he participates in the illegal activity, to which he said, "they give me money, I’m broke." He said he had signed "like five or six" petitions. 

The man said of the petition circulators, "they’re taking names and numbers from last time they had people literally actually signing, and they’re keeping them on file for themselves, so when the next time it comes time to do this again, they have names to put on there again." 

The video comes after a separate one focusing on the situation in Skid Row from the O’Keefe Media Group and the Citizen Justice League. After that video was published, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office called for an investigation into the matter. 

"This alleged activity is a felony in California. Anyone caught engaging in this activity should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said Brandon Richards, deputy director for rapid response in Newsom’s office. 

A statement from the Trump White House was released on Tuesday, reiterating Trump's stance on election security: 

“President Trump has been the number one advocate for election security to America and he will not back down. That’s why he has so passionately been advocating for the SAVE America Act; common sense legislation supported by the vast majority of Americans — including 90% who support voter ID — who want to ensure our elections are secure and that only American citizens vote in American elections," wrote White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.