Hundreds of election ballots were found piled in an open hallway at The Midnight Mission, a homeless shelter on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, according to a report. The shelter, which public records list as having 1,160 registered voters, says its standard practice is to keep ballots locked up until they reach residents — raising questions about how so many wound up sitting out in the open.
The discovery was first detailed in a California Post investigation published October 26; The Gateway Pundit reported on it October 28, saying the California Post authenticated photographs of the unsecured ballots and independently confirmed the scene during an October 13 visit to the facility at 601 South San Pedro Street. The Midnight Mission is a downtown Los Angeles shelter that offers meals and mail services to residents, according to the KBAK report.
Georgia Hawley, the shelter's chief communications officer, pushed back on the idea that ballots were left carelessly exposed. “Our Standard Procedure Is To Secure Election Ballots Behind Locked Doors Until They Are Distributed To Their Intended Recipients,” Hawley said, per the same outlet's reporting. The shelter handles large volumes of mail for its residents, and limited mailroom space requires deliveries to be received, sorted and distributed throughout the day, according to a report from Yahoo News.
Federal Investigators Confirm They're Looking Into Skid Row Ballots
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli confirmed that federal authorities are investigating election ballots on Skid Row, though he declined to discuss The Midnight Mission specifically when asked, the outlet's report states. That leaves open exactly what the investigation covers and how far it extends beyond the shelter where the ballots were photographed.
Scott Meyers, a GOP congressional candidate and lawyer running in California's 30th Congressional District, has criticized how election mail is being handled more broadly. Meyers said ballots are being treated like junk mail and claimed they have also been left unattended in apartment building lobbies. He blamed the U.S. Postal Service for failing to keep ballots secure, arguing that ballots are pieces of gold and represent democracy.
Thousands of Voter Registrations Tied to LA Shelters
The Midnight Mission discovery follows a June report in which the California Post identified roughly 7,600 voter registrations linked to Los Angeles homeless shelters and service providers across the city. Among them were 185 registered voters tied to the St. Joseph Center, a Venice drop-in facility that has no beds — part of a broader category of service providers that includes drop-in centers offering no overnight accommodations.
California does not require a permanent address to register to vote. State guidance allows people experiencing homelessness to register using a location where they can receive mail and be assigned to a voting precinct, including an address where they spend most of their time, such as a shelter, according to the California Secretary of State. A separate report from LAist notes that unhoused voters can describe their residence using nearby cross streets rather than a formal address. As of a 2024 report, Los Angeles County had about 800 voters registered with an intersection address and roughly 5,500 registered with a shelter, church or similar service location, per NBC Los Angeles.
Other Ballot Mishaps Reported Around the State
The Skid Row discovery is not the only ballot-handling issue reported in California this cycle. Nearly 7,800 Tulare County voters received duplicate vote-by-mail ballots because of a vendor error during the ballot replacement process, according to ABC30. County officials there said safeguards would prevent either duplicate from being counted twice, since only one submitted ballot per voter is accepted and any additional ballot is rejected.
Separately, Imperial County officials announced that 160 voters with confidential status received duplicate ballots due to a mailing error, which was linked to ballot-processing procedure changes under California law, according to the KBAK report. The Justice Department has also sued California seeking to block roughly 20,000 ballots from being counted, describing them as tied to likely non-citizens and stating the federal government provided California with information it believes should trigger additional steps before those ballots are counted.
What the Law Says About Ballot Handling
California law treats interference with a voter's completed ballot as a serious matter. Anyone having charge of a completed vote-by-mail ballot who willfully interferes with its return to local elections officials is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in county jail, a fine of up to $10,000, or both, according to the text of California Senate Bill 259. Separately, the Justice Department has pursued at least one case tied to Skid Row voter registration: a May 2026 announcement said a California woman who worked as a longtime signature collector for ballot initiatives was federally charged with paying individuals, including homeless people living on Skid Row, to register to vote, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
No evidence has established that any ballot found at The Midnight Mission was stolen, altered or improperly counted, nor has the exact number of ballots in the hallway been confirmed beyond descriptions of hundreds. For now, the scope of the federal investigation that Essayli confirmed remains undefined, and officials have not detailed how long the ballots sat in the hallway or who placed them there.
