A video circulating on Twitter noted a detail in the mail-in ballots in the California recall election, former Trump administration acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell tweeted Thursday, calling it "cheating."
Grenell's tweet shows a video offering a public service announcement that holes are punched out in the provided envelope, which could reveal a voter's choice on whether to recall California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to the video's author.
Grenell tweeted Thursday evening:
". @GavinNewsom needs to be asked if his team did this on purpose. This is cheating."
Newsmax could not verify details on the reported holes.
The video poster Amy Rose Cox on social media noted the holes could reveal a voter's answer to the first question on the ballot of whether a California voter voted "yes" on recalling Newsom.
Voting is already underway in the September 14 recall election. After voting "yes" or "no" for the recall, there are 46 choices on the ballot for whom the voter can choose to replace the incumbent, embattled governor.
"You can see, if someone, from the outside of the mail-in ballot, you can see if somebody has voted 'yes' to recall Newsom," Cox says in the video. "This is very sketchy, and irresponsible in my opinion, but this is asking for fraud. So anybody that has access to this mail-in envelope can see who's voted 'yes,' toss it, do whatever they want to it.
"So, when you're doing this, make sure that you line up your ballot on the inside of the envelope so that your vote is not visible," she concluded.
Polling has Newsom in a precarious position in the recall vote, as RealClearPolitics polling average has it as a 50-50 proposition on him being recalled for one of the 46 candidates.
Save for a SurveyUSA poll that gave an 11-point edge to Newsom being recalled, most polls are showing the vote to recall will be rejected by the initial "no" vote.
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.