On September 24, 2020, a letter to election officials was made public by the U.S Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania after nine discarded ballots in Luzerne County was discovered.
The letter states that all of the nine ballots were votes for U.S President Donald Trump in the general election, which is now used as evidence to the alleged "voter fraud" theory that the president has been talking about for months.
Discarded ballots
The messaging about the ballots from the office of U.S Attorney David Freed started a massive backlash from former Department of Justice employees for its partisan nature and for breaking from DOJ norms about not commenting on ongoing investigations.
The story is now being used as "evidence" on the claims by President Trump and his supporters that mail-in ballots are prone to widespread fraud.
Matt Wolking, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, tweeted that the ballots were evidence that "Democrats are trying to steal the election." Wolking later deleted the tweet, according to The Washington Post.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said that she could confirm that ballots for Trump were found in Pennsylvania, while claiming that mail-in voting is prone to fraud.
Freed then sent Luzerne County officials a follow-up letter stating seven, not all nine, of the discarded ballots, were cast for President Trump, as posted on the DOJ website.
According to Justine Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School, who previously served as deputy assistant general in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, the news releases contained only a partial list of unconfirmed facts that leave many questions open, especially about what type of ballots were found.
Levitt told Snopes that it is not even clear whether the ballots were mishandled, and that he can't see any legitimate law enforcement reason for stating in the news release which candidate the ballots were cast for, an information that has become "election-season fodder."
DOJ's comment on the matter
In a revised letter to county officials, Freed wrote that investigations had recovered nine ballots, some of those ballots can be attributed to specific voters, and some can't. Of the nine ballots that were discarded and then recovered, seven of them were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Levitt added that the investigation itself is proper and admirable because the DOJ is working to make sure that all eligible votes are counted. But he questioned the propriety of the messaging.
It is the policy of the DOJ not to comment on active investigations except under certain circumstances. It also appears that the news release violated department guidelines that state that when the DOJ is tasked with investigating and prosecuting election-related matters, they must do it without influencing the election.
Levitt said it is improper to put out a press release about the fact of an open, election-related investigation while the election is so near. He added that before the news releases were made public, the information about the ballots was apparently shared with the White House.
Levitt said that there is a separation between the Department of Justice and the White House and that the DOJ does not generally communicate with the White House about the status of pending investigations. He and others criticized the decision to drop the name of President Trump into the news release.
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