Homeless people living on Skid Row in Los Angeles were allegedly paid as little as two dollars apiece to cast votes in the city's mayoral primary, with multiple on-camera accounts now pointing to a pattern of street-level vote-buying that has drawn federal attention. The Department of Justice has already charged one California woman with a felony for paying people to register to vote in the same area, and the allegations keep piling up.
The Daily Caller reported that several local reporters documented homeless individuals claiming they were offered anywhere from $2 to $4 to vote for Democratic incumbent Karen Bass or progressive councilwoman Nithya Raman in the June 2 primary. One woman said she was paid $2 to vote for Bass. She described electioneers who had her "sign the little thing" and said they "come out here all the time." A homeless man in a separate video said he was initially offered $2 but negotiated the price up to $4 after being told to vote for Bass.
These are witness claims captured on social media, not proven in court. But the accounts line up with a broader body of evidence that suggests Skid Row has become a marketplace for cheap, exploitative ballot manipulation.
Investigative reporter James O'Keefe brought the issue into sharper focus back in March 2026, when one of his undercover journalists went to Skid Row and recorded election petitioners urging homeless people to forge names, addresses, and signatures of registered voters, all for a few dollars. O'Keefe posted the findings on X on March 17, describing the operation in blunt terms:
"CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS FRAUD CASH FOR BALLOTS PART I: Homeless Bribed with Cash & Drugs In Exchange For Registering To Vote & Signing Election Petitions Caught On Tape Undercover On Skid Row In California."
In one exchange captured on tape, a petitioner told the undercover journalist, "You can just put Pinocchio Lane", apparently coaching someone to fill in a fake address on an official form. O'Keefe also referenced what he described as California NGOs encouraging fraudulent activity, though the full scope of that claim was not detailed.
The footage raised immediate questions about how widespread such practices are, and who, if anyone, was organizing or funding the effort. Those questions remain unanswered. None of the electioneers shown in the videos have been publicly identified by name or affiliation.
Entrepreneur Brock Pierce separately drew attention to the broader fraud allegations when he put up a $1 million bounty for proof of Los Angeles election fraud, underscoring how seriously some observers are taking the claims.
The DOJ did not wait for the social media debate to play out. A federal press release revealed that Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, described as a longtime signature collector for ballot initiatives in the area, was charged with one felony count of paying another person to register to vote. Armstrong was caught paying people on Skid Row, the DOJ stated.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon framed the charge as part of a broader commitment to election integrity:
"False registrations undermine Americans' faith in elections, even more so when payoffs are involved. This Justice Department is committed to ensuring that all U.S. elections are fair and free from illegal meddling, so that all Americans can accept the results with confidence."
Armstrong's charge is a single case. But it confirms that the federal government views Skid Row vote-buying as real enough to prosecute, not just a social media rumor.
The case number, exact statute, and filing date for Armstrong's charge have not been publicly specified in the available reporting. What is clear is that the DOJ considers Los Angeles election fraud to be on its radar.
The fraud allegations land against a backdrop of an already chaotic Los Angeles mayoral contest. Republican candidate Spencer Pratt held second place for nearly a week after the June 2 primary. Then his position eroded. By June 8, Pratt had fallen to third and was eliminated from the November 3 general election ballot, finishing with 26 percent of the vote.
Nithya Raman overtook him during that window, advancing alongside Bass to the November runoff. The shift happened amid what observers described as increasing allegations of possible election fraud, though no official has drawn a direct causal link between the fraud claims and Pratt's slide in the count.
California's notoriously slow ballot-counting process has only fueled the suspicion. Governor Ron DeSantis publicly called out California's delayed vote tabulation as the mayoral race dragged on, and the state's primary results sat in limbo for days as Los Angeles only began tallying ballots well after polls closed.
That kind of delay does not prove fraud. But it creates the conditions in which fraud allegations thrive, and in which voters lose confidence that the process is clean.
The timeline is worth laying out plainly. O'Keefe's undercover footage surfaced in March. TikTok videos from the @LANeedsSpencerPratt account showed Skid Row residents describing cash-for-votes transactions. The DOJ charged Armstrong with a federal felony. And through it all, the two candidates who allegedly benefited, Bass and Raman, advanced to the general election without any public comment on the allegations included in available reporting.
Bass, for her part, has faced scrutiny on related election-integrity questions before. During the mayoral campaign, she dodged a direct question about noncitizen voting during a debate, a moment that did little to reassure voters concerned about the integrity of the process.
The core questions are still open. Who organized the street-level vote-buying operations described by Skid Row residents? Were the electioneers freelancers, or were they connected to a campaign, a party committee, or a nonprofit? How many ballots were affected? And did any of the purchased votes change the outcome of the primary?
No election official has made a public statement addressing the allegations tied to the mayoral race. Neither Bass nor Raman has responded to the claims in any reporting reviewed. The identities of the electioneers captured in TikTok videos and O'Keefe's footage remain unknown.
Armstrong's felony charge shows the DOJ is willing to act. One prosecution, however, does not account for the volume of on-the-ground accounts now circulating. If Skid Row has become a place where votes are bought for the price of a cup of coffee, the question is not whether it happened, but how deep it goes.
Raman's late surge past Pratt during the slow count has only intensified calls for transparency in how Los Angeles tabulates its ballots and guards against manipulation.
There is something grotesque about a system in which the most vulnerable people in one of America's largest cities, people sleeping on sidewalks, people struggling with addiction and poverty, are allegedly exploited as tools of election manipulation for pocket change. The homeless residents of Skid Row did not create this scheme. They are its raw material.
And the people who benefit sit in City Hall.
A healthy democracy does not survive on the honor system. It survives on enforcement, transparency, and consequences. The DOJ's charge against Armstrong is a start. But one felony count for one signature collector, while two candidates glide into a general election unbothered, is not accountability. It is a down payment, and Los Angeles voters deserve the full bill.
