STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.
Does an online video prove door-to-door canvassers for the Kamala Harris campaign stole mail in Erie, Pennsylvania? No, that's not true: There's nothing in the clip to establish the address, nor that the canvassers deprived the homeowner of their mail. The clip shows a woman wearing a Harris/Walz sticker on her blouse and a "volunteer" lanyard around her neck, accompanied by a man who reaches off-camera to pick up a flyer at the home concerning a Pennsylvania election. The video does not show if it was in a mailbox or closed in a screen door. He appears to possibly add to that flyer a smaller card he is carrying and place them back in the out-of-frame spot. In Pennsylvania law, mail theft is defined as depriving a person of mail that belongs to them.
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, no address marker, unique skyline or other geolocation handles in the post prove that the video was filmed in Erie.
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 23 seconds. 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 examine the background and key elements of the foreground.
Two screenshots from the video appear below. 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 (circled below in yellow) around her neck. The man with her appears to have the same lanyard stuffed in his shirt pocket (circled below in yellow). :
(Source: Instagram screenshots taken on Wed Oct 23 2024 UTC)
Following the edit, the man reaches outside the video frame to pull to him in his left hand a campaign flyer (circled in red) about Jim Wertz, a Democratic candidate for the Pennsylvania State Senate. The flyer appears to refer to Wertz as a "radical." The man bends down and shuffles through some papers and Harris campaign flyers he already has in his right 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 facing the camera but it's unclear what's happened, although he does appear (from audio) to be putting something back and closing either the mailbox or door from which he pulled the papers. 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.
It's not clear whether the Wertz item was sent through the U.S. Mail or dropped off by canvassers.
If it were mailed, it could be the subject of mail theft charges.
Theft - generally defined as the taking of another person's personal property with the intent of depriving that person of the use of their property - is not necessarily documented by the video, since the man appears to have replaced the material he handled.
Pennsylvania's mail theft statute defines it as follows:
A person is guilty of the offense of theft of mail if the person unlawfully takes, or exercises unlawful control over, mail of another person with intent to deprive the other person of mail.
Federal mail law is broader. Mail theft is when a person:
steals, takes, or abstracts, or by fraud or deception obtains, or attempts so to obtain, from or out of any mail, post office, or station thereof, letter box, mail receptacle, or any mail route or other authorized depository for mail matter, or from a letter or mail carrier, any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or abstracts or removes from any such letter, package, bag, or mail, any article or thing contained therein, or secretes, embezzles, or destroys any such letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein ...
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.
Updates:
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2024-10-24T19:01:34Z 2024-10-24T19:01:34Z Updated to clarify what is visible in enlarged images from the video and to include legal definitions of mail theft.
