O'Keefe Enlists Volunteers for Secret Election Filming Effort

James O'Keefe, the founder and former leader of Project Veritas, has put together a cadre of volunteers for a secret filming operation slated to take place at polling and ballot counting places across the country, according to The New York Times.

According to records shared with the Times by a former employee involved in the planning, the group intends to obtain and publicize hidden camera footage to bolster its claims of voter fraud and other election irregularities.

The documents reportedly show that nearly 70 people had signed up to covertly film by mid-October, including people who identified themselves as election judges and volunteer poll watchers.

Election and intelligence officials say they are worried about undercover filming efforts and how such "insider threats" could "derail or jeopardize a fair and transparent election process."

While laws differ from state to state, filming at election sites is prohibited in many places across the United States. O'Keefe acknowledged the legal risk those filming would be taking on, writing on social media last week that it is illegal in some cases for people to record, but "it is legal for me to publish … so long as I 'play no part' in the recording."

The Times reported that O'Keefe responded to its questions by calling his project "fully legal" in a video on social media. He also said he had directed his volunteers to follow the law and not interfere with the electoral process.

"Why on earth would I have arranged all this if I were secretly planning a criminal enterprise?" he said, pledging to "publish an avalanche of these recordings in the coming days."

O'Keefe initially put out a call for volunteers in early September, asking "anybody working in elections" to reach out to him in a post on X.

Kayla Dones, a former employee at O'Keefe Media Group, told the Times she quit her job a little over two weeks ago partly because of the potential for legal liability.

"I remember our being scolded for not being about the mission," Dones said. "I just don't want people to go to jail."

The spreadsheet Dones helped maintain lists volunteers from 25 states and includes nine people who self-identified as election judges and volunteers in five battleground states.

Last week, O'Keefe claimed his list of volunteers had swelled to 200 people and on Thursday he posted on X that he had shipped "election officials" 50 hidden cameras.

The clandestine filming operation has sparked concern from public officials who worry that it "endangers the safety" of poll workers.

"It's awful," Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates said in an interview, pointing out that taking photographs or videos within 75 feet of a polling place is prohibited in Arizona. Gates also reportedly voiced concerns that O'Keefe's project would violate the privacy of poll workers and spur people to break the law.

Amanda López Askin, the county clerk in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, told the Times she had dismissed a temporary elections clerk last week after discovering his online post detailing his interest in secretly recording while working the polls.

Independent journalist Eric Levai identified the clerk as Alfred Cabrales, who reportedly goes by "CrankHandler1991" online.