Election denier group True the Vote is planning to monitor ballot drop boxes with “24/7 streaming video” that will be “available for anyone”

Founder Catherine Engelbrecht: “This cycle, we do intend to have eyes on those drop boxes with surveillance footage”

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published

On Steve Bannon’s War Room, Catherine Engelbrecht — founder of the election denial organization True the Vote — claimed that the organization “intend[s]” to have “surveillance footage” for monitoring ballot drop boxes in states like Michigan and Wisconsin, making it “available for anyone who wants to see it 24/7.” 

Back in 2022, Engelbrecht and True the Vote claimed that drop boxes were used for fraud in the 2020 presidential election in their debunked film 2000 Mules, which was created with Dinesh D’Souza and distributed by Salem Media. Salem later apologized for and retracted the film after settling a lawsuit a Georgia voter filed against the company, True the Vote, and D’Souza. 

True the Vote has pushed election conspiracy theories for years, even partnering with QAnon figures to target an election software company. 

In July, Engelbrecht seemingly revealed that True the Vote is aiming to monitor drop boxes during the 2024 election, claiming during media appearances that the group was reaching out to sheriffs to do so, including giving them “camera equipment.”

Then, during the September 4 episode of War Room, Engelbrecht reiterated the apparent plans to monitor drop boxes this election cycle, while emphasizing that her organization is aiming to provide “24/7 streaming video … for anyone who wants to see it.” 

She also credited the organization’s “work that ultimately led to 2000 Mules” for revealing that “drop boxes were not being monitored, even though states like Wisconsin, like Michigan assured their population that they were.”

From the September 4, 2024, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room 

PETER NAVARRO (GUEST HOST): Drop boxes, let’s face it. They’re the Achilles' heel of the whole election system right now. And a lot of that — your 2000 Mules kind of, I think, proved that. What are you doing, as an organization, to police those drop boxes? How can the posse help?

CATHERINE ENGELBRECHT (TRUE THE VOTE FOUNDER): Well, what we learned out of all of our work that ultimately led to 2000 Mules was that those drop boxes were not being monitored, even though states like Wisconsin, like Michigan assured their population that they were absolutely being monitored with surveillance cameras. That was not true. 

And so, this cycle, we do intend to have eyes on those drop boxes with surveillance footage. And if everything goes as we hope, what you can expect from us is to see 24/7 streaming video with the support of people and procedures that will give us eyes on those drop boxes. And I don’t wanna go too much further into it except to say that there is a plan, and the goal is to make that video available for anyone who wants to see it 24/7. 

And we’re very, very encouraged about that. Not only because it's going to give people an opportunity to see for themselves, but it will also have a deterrent effect to the bad actors that intended to exploit drop boxes thinking that they weren’t going to be called out. They definitely will be.