A voter in Newport Beach, California sent footage from a GOP headquarters to elections officials in Orange County with an urgent message to “PLEASE INVESTIGATE,” according to VICE News.
In the video sent to officials on October 12, a ‘Trump Store’ inside the headquarters with merchandise bearing President Trump’s name and campaign phrase is being sold.
Employees of the store are heard in the video discussing a plot to collect ballots in an unauthorized ballot box.
The California GOP has already ignored cease-and-desist notices from Secretary of State Alex Padilla and Attorney General Xavier Becerra to remove unofficial ballot boxes the party placed in front of gyms, churches, and gun shops at the start of early voting in California.
This video was recorded after the cease-and-desist was sent to state Republicans according to the person who filmed it and subsequently filed the complaint.
An email sent to the Orange County Registrar of Voters from the anonymous videographer stated that “two people working [said] that I could hand them my ballot because they have an official ballot box in the back of the store in a safe.”
Libby Huyck, the chair of the Newport Harbor Republican Women group that runs the store, told VICE News, “We take the ballots just like all the other places, and we don’t have an official ballot box, we have an unofficial ballot box,” adding, “We put [the ballots] immediately into the safe.”
Attorney General Becerra sued the California GOP las week to obtain the contact information for all of the voters who had dropped their ballots at the Newport Beach store location. The Party has so far ignored the state's subpoenas. A spokesperson for the GOP, Hector Barajas, told the Los Angeles Times last week "We will stand up to this type of authoritarian bullying tactics."
Photo: Getty Images