Does an online video show door-to-door canvassers for the Kamala Harris campaign stealing mail in Erie, Pennsylvania? No, that's not true: While an edited clip shows a woman wearing a Harris/Walz sticker on her blouse and a "volunteer" lanyard around her neck, accompanied by a man who also appears to be a volunteer, it's unclear whether any mail was actually taken. Due to the video's edits and where it ends, there's no evidence showing the individuals leaving with any mail or adding any to the mailbox.
The claim appeared in a post and video (archived here) on Instagram on October 22, 2024. The video's caption states, "This needs to be investigated," while the on-screen text above the video reads:
Received this video from a follower in Erie, PA. Their house cam allegedly captured two Kamala/Walz doorknockers stealing mail from the mailbox before replacing it with their own.
This is what the post and video looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Wed Oct 23 16:10:51 2024 UTC)
The post provided no additional evidence to support its assertion that two apparent canvassers for the Harris campaign stole mail from a porch in Erie. Furthermore, nothing in the post confirms that the video was even filmed in the northwestern Pennsylvania community.
U.S. Postal Inspection Service
Asked about the social media claim in an October 23, 2024, email, Michael Martel, a U.S. postal inspector and national public information officer with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, provided this statement to Lead Stories. It said:
The US Postal Inspection Service cannot confirm, deny, or otherwise comment on the existence of ongoing investigations.
The video
The clip in the social media post runs only 23 seconds. However, the timecode in the upper left corner shows evidence of two edits, which removed 15 seconds of video. At the 10-second mark, the timecode jumps from 14:29:52 to 14:30:02, showing 10 seconds was taken out. Then, 20 seconds into the clip, the timecode skips again, from 14:30:12 to 14:30:17, indicating another five seconds were cut. The video is embedded below:
What we can see
Lead Stories downloaded and enlarged the video from the post to do its analysis.
During the first 10 seconds of the clip, the woman with the Harris/Walz sticker on her blouse (circled in yellow) knocks on the door and steps back to see if anyone will answer. In addition to the sticker, the woman has a "volunteer" lanyard (in yellow) around her neck. The man with her appears to have the same lanyard stuffed in his shirt pocket (in yellow). The two screenshots from the video appear below:
(Source: Instagram screenshots taken on Wed Oct 23 2024 UTC)
Following the edit, the man appears to open a wall-mounted mailbox and grabs a campaign flyer (circled in red) about Jim Wertz, a Democratic candidate for the Pennsylvania State Senate, from near the front door. The mailer appears to refer to him as a "radical." The man bends down and shuffles through some papers and Harris campaign flyers he already has in his hand. The screenshot appears below:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Wed Oct 23 23:29:50 2024 UTC)
Following the second edit, the man is still at the mailbox but it's unclear what's happened, although he does appear to be putting something back in the mailbox and shutting it. The missing five seconds of video may have shown more. The clip ends with the man still at the front door. We don't see the two apparent canvassers leave the porch.
The bottom line is that nothing in the video documents mail theft.
Lead Stories also reached out to both the Kamala Harris for President Campaign and the Erie Police Department for comment and will add their responses when they're provided.
Read more
Other Lead Stories articles on claims related to Kamala Harris are here.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to the 2024 U.S. general election and other elections are here.
