Pennsylvania video does not show undocumented immigrants cutting poll line

"ILLEGAL 'VOTERS' CUTTING THE LINE AGAIN!" says an October 29, 2024 X post from Ann Vandersteel, a far-right figure who has promoted the baseless Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theories.

"Look at this BS in Pennsylvania... swing state... it figures. BUSSES of non-english speaking 'citizens' are guided past Americans who had been waiting in line for hours to cast their early votes. These people, all wearing Harris Walz stickers, were directed through the voting process by a handful of 'translators'. DOES THIS SOUND LIKE THE AMERICA YOU GREW UP IN? HOW IS THIS CONSTITUTIONALLY LAWFUL?"

The clip featured in the post shows a group of people, most of whom had no visible campaign buttons, walking toward the entrance of a voting facility and speaking with a woman while a long line stretches down the road.

X owner Elon Musk, a top surrogate for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump who has baselessly claimed Democrats are enabling non-citizens to vote, amplified the post.

"Is this for real?" Musk wrote.

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Screenshot from X taken October 31, 2024

Similar posts -- including from Alex Jones, founder of the conspiratorial website InfoWars -- spread across X as voters hit the polls to cast their ballots in the neck-and-neck election between former president Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

"They are now bringing in undocumented individuals to vote and allowing them to skip ahead in lines," one post claims. "Additionally, they are permitted to change their names."

But the video provides no proof that the individuals pictured are ineligible to vote. Only US citizens can register to do so in Pennsylvania (archived here).

Voters who are registered in the pivotal swing state can cast their ballots early and in person by going to an election office, requesting a mail-in ballot and filling it out on-site. The state calls the process "on-demand mail ballot voting" (archived here).

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Graphic on the US election battleground state of Pennsylvania with previous presidential election results and percentage of population by ethnic group (AFP / Jonathan WALTER, Olivia BUGAULT, Sabrina BLANCHARD)

An Allegheny County spokesperson referred AFP to a statement saying the incident in question occurred in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania,on October 26, several days after the state's registration deadline of October 21 (archived here).

"Therefore, any individual who requested a mail-in ballot this past weekend only would have been given a ballot if they were already registered," the county said in the October 30 statement. "Only US Citizens may register to vote."

The voters also did not skip the line, the county said.

"There was a group of voters on Saturday, Oct. 26, at the South Park Satellite Election Office who came to apply for mail in ballots and needed the assistance of translators. There was brief conversation between voters, their translators, and a county employee that was videotaped and is circulating on the internet.

"The county employee provided instructions that elderly and disabled people were allowed to sit while they waited for their applications to process (as County employees had allowed for any elderly or disabled voter who was attempting to vote at any of our satellite offices). The able-bodied voters returned to the back of the line, elderly and disabled voters were permitted to sit and wait their turn, and those who needed the assistance of a translator were able to use their translator to help them through the process."

Khara Timsina, executive director of the Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh, pointed AFP to comments he made about the viral video's context in an October 30 article from TribLive.com (archived here and here).

Timsina told the local news site that his organization transported the group of voters, with their translators, to the facility by van. He said the voters were part of the county's Nepalese and Bhutanese community, mostly refugees who began arriving in Pittsburgh around 2008 before becoming US citizens years later.

“None of these voters would even think of cutting into line,” he told TribLive.com.

Sam DeMarco, chairman of the Republican Caucus of Allegheny County Council, said October 30 on X that, per the county, the people filmed are US citizens and registered voters (archived here).

AFP has previously debunked numerous other claims about non-citizens voting in the US presidential election.

More of AFP's coverage of election misinformation is available here.