Conspiracy theorists exploded after ballots were found in a ravine — but here's what really happened

On Friday, PolitiFact broke down everything that's really known about a curious incident in which California ballots were discovered abandoned in a mountain ravine — even as conspiracy theorists online take the incident viral, claiming it's evidence of a Democratic plot to steal the 2022 midterm elections.

"On Nov. 11, an NBC News affiliate in California’s Bay Area reported that a woman had reported finding a bag stuffed with completed Santa Clara County ballots in a mountain ravine there," reported Ciara O'Rourke. "A recent Instagram post shared an authentic clip of the coverage, but wrongly claimed that it illustrates 'how the left cheats to win.'"

The abandoned ballots were real. However, while the U.S. Postal Service is still investigating how they came to be there, there is no evidence of any kind that this was foul play from Democratic operatives — and furthermore, most of those ballots still ended up being counted.

"We reached out to the Santa Clara County registrar of voters about the post and asked whether there’s any evidence to show that Democratic operatives are behind the recovered ballots," said the report. "The registrar of voters’ responded with a Nov. 16 press release that does not corroborate such a claim."

"In all, 36 ballots were recovered and turned over to the voter registrar Nov. 14," said the report. "After the required validation and signature verification processes, 31 were eligible and counted in the election. Four of the ballots had open envelopes and the registrar 'is unable to count ballots whose envelopes have been opened or sufficiently torn such that the ballot may have been tampered with,' the press release said. The remaining ballot had a signature that didn’t match the voter’s signature on file."

After the 2022 midterm election yielded disappointing results for Republicans, with Democrats maintaining control of the Senate and Republicans only winning the House by a razor-thin margin, some Trump loyalists have tried to claim with no evidence the election was rigged. Pro-Trump Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, for example, blamed her narrow election loss on malfunctioning tabulators at a handful of Maricopa County precincts, even though voters were still able to drop off their ballots with an alternative method.