About 20 FBI and Department of Homeland Security agents descended on Los Angeles's Skid Row on Thursday to investigate allegations that homeless residents were paid cash to sign multiple voter registration forms, forge signatures, and fill out election paperwork — and the trail leads straight to the city's Democratic mayoral machine.
But remember, voter fraud is a right-wing myth. The "experts" told us so.
The federal investigation kicked into high gear after homeless people living on Skid Row told investigators they'd been offered money to register and vote in the Los Angeles mayoral race and California's June 2 primary elections. One Skid Row resident, Kevin Shepherd, told reporters he was offered $2 to vote for incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass — and haggled his way up to $4. Four whole dollars. That's the going rate for democracy in Democrat-run Los Angeles.
A homeless woman captured on video by California Post admitted she'd sign "four or five" ballots at a time. "It depends," she said, as casually as if she were ordering from a drive-through. Multiple ballots, forged signatures, all for pocket change. Nothing to see here.
FBI Director Kash Patel made the stakes crystal clear. "Securing our elections is of the upmost priority for this FBI!" Patel declared. "If you mess with our elections we will find you!"
The DOJ had already been circling this. Back in May, federal prosecutors arrested and indicted 64-year-old Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, a professional signature collector, on one felony count of paying individuals — including homeless people on Skid Row — to register to vote. Prosecutors alleged that some of those registrants were even instructed to use an address connected to Armstrong, raising the obvious question of where those ballots ultimately ended up.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon connected the dots. "False registrations undermine Americans' faith in elections — even more so when payoffs are involved," Dhillon said. "This Justice Department is committed to ensuring that all U.S. elections are fair and free from illegal meddling."
Here's where it gets really interesting. After the June 2 primary, a suspicious dump of mail-in ballots from Skid Row addresses helped push Democratic Socialist Councilwoman Nithya Raman past insurgent candidate Spencer Pratt for the second-place slot in the mayoral race. Pratt, who had been surging with grassroots support, suddenly found himself bumped to third by ballots pouring in from an area where thousands of people were registered at shelter addresses — many of which don't have actual beds.
Let that sink in. People registered at addresses that don't physically exist as residences, casting ballots that conveniently benefited the establishment Democrat. And we're the conspiracy theorists?
This is the same party that screams "voter suppression" every time a state asks for photo ID. The same party that calls election integrity laws "Jim Crow 2.0." The same city that has actively pushed to let non-citizens vote in local elections. And now we find out they were allegedly farming votes from the most vulnerable, desperate people in America — people living on concrete sidewalks — for two bucks a ballot.
The exploitation is the quiet part. These aren't empowered voters making informed choices. These are people in crisis being handed cash, cigarettes, and reportedly even drugs in exchange for their signatures on forms they may not even understand. That's not democracy. That's predatory.
As reported by The Blaze, roughly 20 federal officers spent Thursday interviewing dozens of Skid Row residents, building what looks like a case that goes well beyond one signature collector. The question now is how high this goes — and whether the same Democratic machine that benefited from these ballots had any idea where they were coming from.
Something tells me we already know the answer to that one.