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stated on November 15, 2022 in a post:

Bags arriving at the Maricopa County vote counting site are evidence of “Democrats with the help of the media and GOP establishment stealing another election.”

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, left, answers a question during a news conference at the Maricopa County Recorders Office in Phoenix, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022.

By Amy Sherman November 17, 2022

No, bags of ballots are not a sign of fraud in Maricopa County, Arizona

If Your Time is short

Maricopa County follows Arizona’s election procedures manual, which details the steps for taking ballots from voting sites to a central counting facility.
After polls close on Election Day, ballots are placed in black bags that are for security and brought to the central site by two workers from differing political parties.
The number of ballots is compared with the number of voters who checked in. Observers from both political parties oversee this reconciliation process.

See the sources for this fact-check

Instagram users took a still image from a live video recording of Maricopa County, Arizona’s vote counting site and reached the false conclusion it is evidence of fraud.

"This is a live feed of video from Maricopa County a few minutes ago. A bunch of bags just randomly arrived at the vote counting center..." stated a Nov. 15 Instagram post.

The photo shows Maricopa’s central counting facility in Phoenix, with a luggage trolley piled full of black bags.

The caption says, "Nothing to see here, just Democrats with the help of the media and GOP establishment stealing another election." The caption continued that the "reason the Republican establishment is not saying a thing" about "these obvious stolen elections" is because they want to "get rid of" former President Donald Trump and squash the MAGA movement.

Hashtags on the post said #ElectionFraud and #DemocratsCheatOutinTheOpen.

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The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

A Maricopa County Elections Department spokesperson, Megan Gilbertson, told us that the scene in the video screen grab is normal and reflects a long-standing post-election practice.

The black canvas bags in the image are used to take voted ballots and results reports from the vote centers to the central counting site after polls close on Election Day, Gilbertson said.

"Bags are sealed with a tamper-evident seal for security, logged on a chain of custody form and returned to the Elections Department by two poll workers of differing parties," Gilberton said. "When the black canvas bags are opened, it’s done under 24/7 livestream cameras and with political party observers present."

The process is observed by members of the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties, Gilbertson said. The image in the Instagram post shows both observers and election officials.

It is common for the black canvas bags to be in the ballot tabulation center as officials reconcile the number of physical ballots with the number of voters who checked in at voting centers.

"This is basically an audit check for us," Gilbertson said. "We do it in every election right at the end."

Maricopa tweeted a similar image of the bags of ballots and wrote, "This routine process happens every election to ensure only legal ballots are counted."

Alex Gulotta, Arizona state director of the voting rights group All Voting is Local, said the image shows the standard practice as outlined in the state’s election procedures manual. On Page 194, the manual explains the procedure for transporting ballots to a central counting site.

Threads posts

stated on November 9, 2024 in a Threads post

"Arizona officials caught changing ballots, have been arrested.”

Sarah Brannon, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s voting rights project, also confirmed that the image shows a typical process used by Maricopa officials.

"The county has represented that these pictures are related to that regular process," Brannon said. "We have no reason to question that representation and no reason to believe these pictures raise any questions about the integrity of the election in Maricopa County."

Our ruling

An Instagram post said that bags arriving at the Maricopa County vote counting site are evidence of "Democrats with the help of the media and GOP establishment stealing another election."

Bags did arrive at a Maricopa election site, but it’s not a sign of anything criminal or nefarious, and it is in keeping with the state’s election procedures manual. Sealed bags are taken from vote centers to the central counting site by workers of differing political parties. When the bags are opened, it’s done under camera surveillance with political party observers present.

The bags are at the vote counting site so officials can reconcile the number of ballots with the number of voters who checked in at voting centers.

We rate this claim Pants on Fire!