The hole in the ballot envelope doesn't let anyone see your vote

On October 25, a short video began travelling: a man holds up a Ventura County, California ballot return envelope, points to a small punched hole, and demonstrates how a marked ballot can be lined up with the hole so a vote shows through. The X account Libs of TikTok shared the clip with the caption 'California is rigging the elections,' and similar posts followed — some alleging that election workers or mail carriers could use the hole to identify and discard ballots cast for Republicans. Election Day is November 3. The claim arrived right on schedule.

Start with what the video actually demonstrates. The alignment it shows is one the demonstrator arranged: a ballot placed in the envelope 'in a particular way,' with the hole landing beside Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra's name. What the video doesn't mention is that Ventura County's 2026 ballot is three double-sided cards, and voters fold them and insert them in any order. There is no fixed alignment for a hole to exploit — the one in the video was staged by hand.

Then ask the office that printed the envelope — which is the step the viral posts skipped. Simone Seydoux, a spokesperson for the Ventura County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters, says the envelopes follow a design standard recommended by the California Secretary of State. The two holes sit on the back of the envelope, one on each side of the space where the voter signs — because that's their first job: helping voters with visual impairments locate the signature area by touch.

The second job is the one that inverts the whole theory. One hole punches through the entire envelope so election workers can check that the envelope is empty after the ballot has been removed — an integrity check, the opposite of a peephole — and so stacks of empty envelopes can be secured with zip ties for storage. Seydoux's sentence deserves to be quoted whole: 'The holes are NOT positioned in order to see the vote on a particular contest.' She also notes officials order the envelopes in advance and reuse them across elections — the design predates this race, these candidates, and this viral moment.

And the answer was never hidden. The California Secretary of State's office addressed the holes publicly earlier in October, explaining the accessibility purpose and noting that voters who remain concerned can insert their ballots in different ways so nothing can align with anything. In other words: the explanation existed before the accusation. The claim spread anyway, because a design feature plus a staged demonstration plus the words 'rigging the elections' travels faster than one email to a county office.

Verdict: the claim is false. The hole is real; the rigging is not. This is the most common shape of an election conspiracy — a genuine, checkable detail, presented without the one phone call that explains it. SmokeScreen's rule stands: before you share a ballot claim, check with the office that printed the ballot. The receipts are below.