'Election disinformation': Viral video isn't ballot stuffing. It's mail delivery, exec says

This report is part of a project with the Center for Media Engagement on dispelling election misinformation.

EASTON, Pa. — A social media video that has gotten millions of views shows someone bringing a bin of mail-in ballots to the Northampton County Courthouse.

The viral post has created a stir with some suggesting voter fraud and election shenanigans.

Instead, it’s simply a man doing his job, according to Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure.

The video shows Easton’s acting postmaster delivering mail-in ballots received by the U.S. Postal Service to the government center, where the county elections office is based, McClure said.

“What you’re looking at is the natural, normal, perfectly lawful delivery of mail by the United States Postal Service,” he said Thursday.

The video has gotten about 6 million views on X, formerly Twitter.

“There’s somebody here in Northampton County dropping off an obscene amount of ballots at the very last second,” a man says off camera as the person enters the government center with a bin and approaches sheriff’s deputies at the entryway scanners.

“Excuse me, how many ballots are you turning in there?” says a person off camera. “You’re supposed to only turn in one ballot per person.”

“Do you have an affidavit for all of those?” he asks.

“He’s post office,” one of the deputies apparently says.

“OK, sure,” says the man.

McClure labeled the social media post “election disinformation.” He said it apparently was shot Tuesday as the interim postmaster was delivering the mailed ballots — a process that happens every day.

“It was in the right-wing Twittersphere, if you will,” said McClure, a Democrat. “Somebody sent it to one of our election folks and it made its way to me.”

McClure said the misinformation is problematic across several layers.

“There’s the personal danger to the postal worker, who had already started to be stalked on the Internet,” he said. “There’s the just general danger of election disinformation.

"It was shared millions of times in the right-wing Twittersphere and by noted liars like Alex Jones.

“Then there’s the larger danger to the confidence in elections by the broader public. The one thing is there’s no real danger to the process here because we’re going to have a legal, fair and accurate election.”

He said the idea that someone could freely walk into the courthouse with a box of fraudulent ballots doesn’t comport with reality.

“It’s absurd that someone would attempt to stuff ballots,” he said. “You’re on camera from the time you leave your car to go into the complex until you get back to it.

"Literally, every step can be traced. There were deputies there, to run the stuff through the scanners. You’d have to be totally brain dead to attempt to stuff ballots that way.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was produced as part of a partnership between LehighValleyNews.com and the Center for Media Engagement in a project designed to identify and dispel election-related misinformation. If you see, hear, or suspect misinformation about the election process, email news@lehighvalleynews.com or create an account and report it directly to the project’s website.