“California is rigging the elections,” announced the far-right conspiracist account Libs of Tiktok, run by real estate agent-turned-provocateur Chaya Raichik, on Sunday. Her evidence: small holes punched in the state’s ballot return envelopes. Raichik, whose post was viewed by 1.5 million people, shared a video filmed by someone who claimed the holes in the envelope were designed to reveal the vote within. 

Similar claims date back to at least 2021, when viral videos began to circulate asserting that the holes would be used for tampering during that year’s gubernatorial recall election. Since then, disinformation like Raichik’s has kept the idea alive. 

But the real reason behind the holes is much simpler and less insidious: they’re there so that blind and low-vision people know where to sign their envelopes. During the statewide special elections of November 2025, rumors about the ballot-envelope perforations became so pervasive that the California Secretary of State issued a statement about it: 

“We have been seeing a great deal of misinformation about the November 4, 2025, Statewide Special Election ballot envelopes, and I want to set the record straight,” said Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber at the time. 

“The small holes on ballot envelopes are an accessibility feature to allow sight-impaired voters to orient themselves to where they are required to sign the envelope,” she said. The holes also help election workers determine whether there’s a ballot inside the envelope, an important consideration when you are trying to count ballots. 

The envelope-holes theory isn’t the only conspiracy churning about the California elections this cycle. Federal agencies have alleged without evidence that tens of thousands of noncitizens may be voting in California, the latest unfounded claim of a mass voter fraud ring favoring Democrats. President Donald Trump also claimed in June that progressive Democrat Nithya Raman could not have won her mayoral primary in Los Angeles—and that those elections must have been rigged.

According to an August study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, all these stories of pervasive election fraud—be it immigration-related or tiny-holes-in-envelopes-related—have led a full 75 percent of the state’s Republicans to say they are “not confident” in California’s election systems. (Most Democrats, meanwhile, are worried about federal and foreign governments intervening in their elections, as opposed to internal fraud.) 

If the holes in your envelope show your vote, some commenters online pointed out, you’re probably folding your ballot wrong.

This post was shared from Mother Jones.