The Ballot Harvesting Trope
Authors: Elena Cryst and Tara Kheradpir, Stanford Internet Observatory; Erin Mcaweeney, Graphika
Contributors: Ananya Karthik and Alessandro Vecchiato, Stanford Internet Observatory
Ballot collecting, or ballot harvesting as it is more adversarily known, is legal either with or without restrictions in 26 states. The practice in its simplest form allows a designated agent to deliver an absentee or vote-by-mail ballot on behalf of a voter. Proponents say it increases voter turnout by limiting the barriers to vote. Opponents say it can enable bad actors to change or destroy ballots. In the past month, EIP has received and analyzed numerous reports related to ballot harvesting. Some contained no falsifiable claims and were therefore unactionable under our procedures. Others had already received widespread coverage from media outlets. We see this complex topic as a repeated narrative leading up to the election.
Ballot-harvesting narratives are an issue of concern to EIP as they relate to all four of our categories of election-related content: procedural interference because they can cast doubt on the legality of ballot-collection practices; participation interference because it may prevent a person from submitting their ballot through legal means; fraud because it is illegal in some jurisdictions for an individual to collect and submit a ballot on behalf of another; and delegitimization because they can promote false or misleading narratives about the election results. As with public voter records, the range of policies on ballot collecting makes it difficult for platforms to assign blanket policies nationwide. A headline that implies that ballot harvesting is illegal reads true to a voter in Alabama, where voters are required to return their own ballots, and reads false to a voter in California, where a voter may designated another individual to return their ballot.
Moreover, the term “harvesting” conjures up images in the public imagination. Increasingly we see the term applied broadly to a number of distinct challenges to election integrity and disassociated with the more formal public policy definition of ballot harvesting or ballot collecting. The evocative nature of the term may contribute to its persistent use.
What is ballot harvesting and is it legal?
Depending on who you ask, the term “ballot harvesting” can take on different meanings. The term comes from the practice of ballot collection, where third-parties help absentee voters by collecting and submitting their ballots. Proponents of ballot collection contend that the service is enfranchising for those who have difficulty accessing in-person polling (i.e., those who live in remote areas, lack access to transportation, do not have time off to vote, have limited mobility, or are hospitalized or bedridden). During the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, advocates argue that ballot collection offers more equitable access to voting for vulnerable populations whose health may be risked by in-person voting. Critics of ballot collection highlight the possibility of increasing the potential for vote misappropriation or fraud. These critics have increasingly used the term ballot harvesting to refer to the practice.
As with most voting-related legislation, the rules around ballot collection vary state-by-state, making the issue all the more complex. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 26 states plus the District of Columbia permit an absentee ballot to be returned by a designated agent. A “designated agent,” in this case, could include a family member, attorney, attendant care provider or anyone who has been designated by the voter to deliver on their behalf. In these cases, the voter may entrust someone else — often in writing — to return the ballot. The chart below outlines the landscape for ballot-collection policies across all 50 states. For states that do not address whether an agent or family member may return an absentee ballot, the policies vary further. In some states, this may mean absentee ballot collection is generally accepted, and in others it may mean that this practice is not permitted.
| Permit an absentee ballot to be returned by a designated agent. Do not limit the number of ballots an agent or designee may return |
Alaska, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. (14 states) |
| Policies do not address whether an agent or family member may return an absentee ballot on behalf of a voter, or policies are unclear. |
Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. (13 states) |
| Permit an absentee ballot to be returned by a designated agent. Limit the number of ballots an agent or designee may return |
Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia. (12 states) |
| Permit an absentee ballot to be returned by a family member |
Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oklahoma (spouse only). (10 states) |
| Absentee ballot must be returned by the voter either in person or by mail |
Alabama (1 state) |
Ballot Harvesting Narratives
EIP has noted a slow but continuous presence of ballot-harvesting narratives online. In May when Rodney Davis (R-IL) introduced a “Voter Fraud Prevention Act” in the U.S. House of Representatives aimed at eliminating ballot harvesting. That bill was reintroduced with co-sponsorship from Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) in September. More recently, spikes in the use of the hashtag #ballotharvesting were tied to specific online campaigns and by tweets with language such as “make it trend #ballotharvesting.” Common among many narratives and posts is an effort to disassociate ballot collection from its legal precedent and instead use it as evidence of voter fraud. These stories are part of a bigger trend in which claims of ballot harvesting or voter fraud are substantiated by allegations or claims that have yet to be resolved, proven, or by their nature are difficult to verify.
Figure 2: Google Trends for "Ballot Harvesting" from April 1 to Oct. 24, 2020. Distinct peaks are visible on May 15 ("Voter Fraud Prevention Act" announcement), September 29 (Project Veritas Ballot Harvesting story) and October 13-15 (California ballot collection boxes)
Figure 3: Interactions with public Facebook Posts using the hashtag #ballotharvesting or the text “ballot harvesting” from April 1 to Oct. 24, 2020. A peak of interactions occurred on April 14 with a post from President Trump (Source: Crowdtangle)
The overarching theme across the investigated ballot harvesting claims is that Democrats are committing voter fraud though wide-scale ballot-harvesting initiatives. Our data shows that this narrative has been repeatedly embraced by conservative media and influencers. Figure 4 is a chronotope that represents the use of the hashtag #ballotharvesting on Twitter over the last month. Each dot on the graph is a tweet from a member of their respective group. The groupings are from a network map built by Graphika based on election discussion on Twitter. Over the last month the hashtag #ballotharvesting appeared in tweets in pro-Trump clusters (in red and violet) 8,224 times, compared to 30 times in left-leaning and anti-Trump clusters (in blue). After the sharing of a Project Veritas video in the beginning of October that used the hashtag, the hashtag saw its largest spike in use.
Figure 4: A timeline of Twitter accounts from a Graphika election map that used the hashtag #ballotharvesting over the last month.
Content has appeared on multiple platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Parler and Craigslist, and ballot-harvesting claims have been amplified by liberal and conservative news outlets, websites, politicians, and influencers. The term has been used to resurface dated claims of voter fraud targeted at the elderly, it has been appropriated through political stunts aimed at discrediting existing policies, and it is increasingly disassociated with its original meaning and applied broadly to vote stealing and vote tampering allegations.
Granny Farming
References to Democratic-led electoral fraud in nursing homes surface sporadically on social media. EIP investigated two of these claims directly. Allegations of "granny farming" – a phenomenon in which workers who are sent to nursing homes to help residents fill out their absentee ballots might select a candidate without the resident's input – date back to a few documented incidents from the 1980s and 1990s. This narrative, while not a documented concern of late, has gained traction recently. An article in the New York Post on August 29 resurfaced the narrative by citing an interview with a “top Democratic operative” who explained how “helping” voters in nursing homes was a source for votes for the party. The feasibility and veracity of the claims in that article are refuted.
GOP Collection Boxes
On October 10 and 11, images and reports began circulating of unofficial ballot collection boxes in southern California placed by the California state Republican Party. On October 12, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla issued a cease-and-desist letter to the group and several county offices stating that the boxes were unlawful and demanding their removal. The GOP removed the boxes, but issued a statement expressing their discontent with existing state regulations on ballot collection: “If Democrats are so concerned with ballot harvesting, they are the ones who wrote the legislation, voted for it, and Governor Jerry Brown signed it into law. California Republicans would be happy to do away with ballot harvesting.” Parties are allowed to collect ballots on behalf of constituents but unofficial ballot boxes are not allowed under California statutes.
Misrepresenting Ballot Harvesting
As noted above, ballot collection is a legal practice under which a designated individual may deliver a completed, sealed ballot on behalf of a voter. In many narratives we have seen, the term “Ballot Harvesting” is increasingly being used as a proxy term and applied to other unverified claims of voter fraud, such as ineligible voters receiving ballots, individuals receiving more than one ballot, mail dumping, or ballots being illegally collected and completed by a third party.
Figure 5: Tweets (left) and Facebook Posts (right) using #ballotharvesting in reference to incidents unrelated to ballot collection.
Conclusion
Ballot harvesting as a topic has persisted online throughout this election cycle. The term itself has become politically charged and is increasingly disassociated with the practice – legal in some jurisdictions – of ballot collection. As we have seen in other cases, the disparate policies across the United States make it challenging to fit the allegations neatly into platform policies designed to cover the country as a whole. As we get closer to the election, we may increasingly see the term and hashtag applied to a broad range of allegations of voter fraud.
