Ghost Hunt: Zero Fraud Found

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Picture a Monday in Santa Maria. The first day ballot drop boxes open in California. You pull into the Allan Hancock College lot, envelope on the passenger seat, and to reach the box you have to walk past federal agents working a detention. You didn't sign up for a haunted house. You just came to vote.

The real version comes from a court complaint, per election lawyer Marc Elias. It's the last chapter of a longer ghost story: a federal hunt for voter fraud that, per internal ICE records, found nothing.

Elias laid it out on Brian Tyler Cohen's Democracy Watch. He chairs the board of Democracy Forward, the group that pried the records loose through a public records request.

The hunt

Elias calls it a smoking gun. He says the records show ICE investigators targeting progressive voter registration groups, whose whole job is helping people get registered.

A document dated June 1, 2026, lays out how Homeland Security and ICE are collecting tens of millions of records on everyday Americans, per Elias, with some of that data shared with companies like Palantir. A big chunk, he says, came from Heather Honey, a well-known election denier who is now a senior advisor inside the department. The call was coming from inside the house.

What they found: nothing

Every Halloween somebody swears the house is haunted, sets up the cameras, and catches absolutely nothing. Per Elias, ICE's own reviews went the same way.

In Pennsylvania, investigators reviewed 82 nonprofit organizations and wrote down, in Elias's quote of the records, "no voter fraud determined." Twenty accounts tied to the Amalgamated Foundation, connected to the leading bank used by Democrats and their campaigns: no suspicious financial activity. Forty-four nonprofits in New Jersey: nothing. In Ohio, the records on their Columbus initiative say all investigative leads were exhausted and no further action was expected.

They found a whole lot of nothing. | Marc Elias

Then, Elias says, they kept going anyway, drawing up a plan to explore "the possible deployment of undercover agents" inside these groups. He compares it to McCarthy-era spying and the Nixon White House. When the evidence says there's no ghost and you send in more ghost hunters, the hunt was never about ghosts.

It came to Santa Maria

Back to that parking lot. Elias said an amended complaint, filed in court just hours before he recorded, says ICE detained a person in a lot at Allan Hancock College. The adjoining lot was an active ballot drop-off location, and voters had to pass through the area where agents were working to reach the box.

Elias added that it is a federal crime for armed federal agents to be present at the polls, and several lawsuits over armed agents near polling locations are already moving.

Santa Maria, Orcutt, Guadalupe, anywhere a drop box sits by a busy campus or shopping center: this isn't a faraway Washington story. It's your parking lot.

If you see agents near your polling place

Elias gave real advice. Screenshot it.

Vote first. Finish casting your ballot. Don't let agents, or even the urge to report them, stop you. "We cannot allow ourselves to self-suppress," he said.

Don't play hero. Don't confront anyone, especially federal agents. Your safety comes first.

Document it. From a respectful distance, out of anyone's way, take photos, video or notes.

Report it. Elias says that in most of California, local law enforcement will take a report and escalate it. You can also go to the California Secretary of State or call the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683). In Spanish, it's 888-VE-Y-VOTA.

The bigger picture

Elias says the administration thinks it will never face consequences, and that when Donald Trump leaves power there has to be accountability, no "bygones are bygones." Whatever comes next, a scare campaign only works if you stay home. Walk past it. Drop the ballot anyway.

Need the cheat sheet for your ballot? Read our 805 voter guide in the new issue of Connxct Magazine.

Sources

“BOMBSHELL!” Trump’s midterm scheme EXPOSED in “SMOKING GUN” (Brian Tyler Cohen)

Election Protection hotline (866-OUR-VOTE)

The claims about ICE records and the Santa Maria detention come from Marc Elias in the video above. Democracy Forward published the records it obtained. Check official sources before you share.

Watch the full video