Misleading claims about the safety of mail-in voting aren’t new, but a recent Instagram video has added a new twist, claiming that people must choose the right postal service to ensure their ballots are counted.
The Oct. 27 video features a man sitting in his car saying that the U.S. Post Office is a “de jure postal service,” while the U.S. Postal Service is a “de facto” federal corporation. The man claims the Postal Service doesn’t “work for the people,” and it can do whatever it wants to mail-in ballots.
“If you use the United States Postal Service certified mail or registered mail, they can do anything they want with those (mail-in) ballots,” he said. “They can take a box of those ballots, a crate of those ballots … leave them there, they could set them on fire, they can throw them in the dumpster.”
The man said the only way for a mail-in ballot to be safely counted is if it’s sent by registered mail.