Does a post on social media prove that a "male relative who recently started identifying as a 'woman' received two ballots for the election" in McHenry County, Illinois, in 2024? No, that's not true: The post's images of envelopes had labels that said they had applications for ballots, not mail ballots themselves. The post also didn't prove that the envelopes were for one person, not two.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on November 1, 2024. It said:
You are not going to believe this. A person on here sent me these in private. Their male relative who recently started identifying as a 'woman' received two ballots for the election, one under each name. The legal fiction of 'trans rights identity' is not only letting men hide from sex offender registries it's also allowing VOTER FRAUD.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Nov 4 14:21:43 2024 UTC)
The entry contained images of what looked like envelopes from the office of the McHenry County Clerk. The same account on X reshared the same pictures in one more post (archived here).
However, the claim was self-debunking. Contrary to the post on X, the images of the envelopes -- visible in full by clicking on either partial image in the post -- read that they contained applications for mail ballots, not ballots themselves:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Nov 4 14:44:08 2024 UTC)
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Nov 4 14:44:23 2024 UTC)
Furthermore, since all the identifying information was blurred, there is no proof that "Jacob V" and "Isabela V" are one person, not two different individuals.
When asked about the claim, McHenry County Clerk and Recorder Joseph J. Tirio (archived here) told Lead Stories via email on November 4, 2024:
I will say that 9 out of 10 times when people say that they 'have two ballots' what they really have are two ballot applications. Applications are sent by our office (and can be sent by literally anyone including campaigns trying to drive mail participation).
A ballot must be requested, using such an application.
As Lead Stories previously wrote, election officials cancel duplicate applications to ensure that one person gets one ballot.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of the claims concerning the 2024 U.S. presidential elections can be found here.
