Add The California Post on Google A Spencer Pratt volunteer team has claimed they found lots of ballots were sent out on Skid Row – but few there actually voted in the Los Angeles mayoral race.
The California Post joined four members of the “Pratt Pack” on Sunday as they spent hours touring the run-down neighborhood.
They asked dozens of locals about voter registration, mail-in ballots and the petition gatherers who have worked the district for years trying to get them to vote.
It comes just a week after Pratt was dumped out of the race for mayor after Karen Bass won and Nithya Raman received a huge pile of mail-in ballots that saw her dramatically overtake him.
Susan Collins, a former California State Senate candidate who was part of the “Pratt Pack” on Sunday, told The Post: “What we’re finding is a lot of people being registered to vote, a lot of ballots being sent out, and nobody actually voted.”
The California Post’s own investigation uncovered thousands of voter registrations.
A review of public records identified more than 7,600 registered voters linked to shelters, supportive housing projects, addiction treatment centers and social service agencies, including 1,160 registrations connected to the Midnight Mission in Skid Row.
One longtime local told volunteers on Sunday he personally knew the Marina del Rey woman recently charged by federal prosecutors with paying homeless people to register to vote.
Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, known as “Anika,” was charged in May with paying another person to register to vote.
According to federal prosecutors, Armstrong worked for years as a paid petition circulator collecting signatures for California ballot measures and has agreed to plead guilty.
“She was right at this corner. This was her area,” Thadeus Brown told volunteers. Brown claimed people were routinely offered money or cigarettes to sign forms.
“She’d give them $3 to $5. Some of the cheap people give them $2 and a cigarette,” he alleged. But Brown’s account echoed a theme volunteers said surfaced again and again throughout the day: residents remembered registering to vote.
They remembered petition gatherers. What many didn’t remember was actually casting a ballot.
The volunteers moved through tents, shelters, service centers and sidewalk encampments, interviewing people residents about their experiences with the drives.
“A lot of people never voted,” Brown said. “They did register, but they just wanted the names.”
For Collins, who has spent years raising concerns about ballot collection practices, the most striking part of Sunday’s visit was hearing the same story repeated block after block.
“So what I’ve been hearing from a lot of people is that they registered to vote,” Collins said. “I have not found anybody that has actually voted.”
“The big question now is what happened to all those ballots,” Collins said. “People remember getting them. They don’t remember voting. So where did the ballots go?”
Ann Juliano, who was visiting Skid Row for the first time, described the experience as eye-opening and said it strengthened her determination to stay involved rather than watch from afar.
“It was really intense,” Juliano said. “We saw a guy chasing another guy with a shovel and attacking him.”
Juliano said she came to Skid Row looking for answers, convinced there was more to the election story than voters were being told.
“I guess being here is part of trying to figure out what happened. The numbers just don’t make sense. That’s why I’m digging deeper instead of sitting on the sidelines.”
“One thing I would like to say is that I think this election has forever changed Los Angeles,” she said. “At least that’s my hope, that people will feel empowered to keep talking about the truth and keep looking for the truth.”
