Vehicles seen in MSNBC live report from Philadelphia contained election equipment, not ballots

In the hours before The Associated Press called the Pennsylvania vote totals for former President Donald Trump, some social media users — including Trump — complained fraud was underway in Philadelphia to help Vice President Kamala Harris.

One social media user said in a Nov. 5 X post that an MSNBC report about an upcoming ballot drop was suspicious.

"BREAKING! Vans filled with 50,000 ballots show up in Philadelphia while live on MSNBC. Then, they say that 37,000 more will come in tomorrow… HOW the hell did they know how many ballots?!" the X post said. "And, HOW did they know to video at the EXACT moment??? BECAUSE, THAT ISN’T SUSPECT AT ALL!"

In a reply to his own post, the person said, "SOMETHING MUST BE DONE IMMEDIATELY!!!" We found other X users posting video of the report and claiming it showed something nefarious. 

NewsGuard, a company that tracks online false narratives, said the claim began to spread among conservative social media users shortly after midnight. "Trucks full of ballots pulling up at 12am in Philly. Nothing to see here, folks," wrote End Wokeness, a conservative account with 3 million followers. That post had amassed nearly 8 million views by Nov. 6.

In the MSNBC report, NBC News political and national correspondent Jacob Soboroff was reporting outside Philadelphia’s election warehouse at 11:51 p.m. EST. He said 50,000 ballots would be released in the next nine minutes and then another 37,000 ballots the next day.

Soboroff pointed out two arriving vehicles escorted by police that he said may be some ballots or something else arriving at the site. But he did not say those vehicles were carrying the 50,000 ballots he had mentioned.

"No, that is not correct. Nor is that post," Soboroff said in an X message to PolitiFact.

(Screenshot from X)

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The trucks seen arriving in the MSNBC report did not contain any ballots, Kevin Feeley, a spokesperson for Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, a Republican, said in an email to PolitiFact.

"All the mail ballots that remain to be counted were delivered to the warehouse hours before this video was recorded," Feeley said. 

Feeley said the video showed the delivery of polling place records and equipment, including electronic poll books — tablets or laptops used in part to look up eligible voters — that were being returned to the election warehouse as the polling places were closing.

"It is normal for this material to be returned to the warehouse, which holds all of the city’s election equipment, as the polling places are being closed down," Feeley said. "As we said, folks were working around the clock yesterday."

News reports show there was a Philadelphia ballot update at midnight, which could explain the 50,000 ballots Soboroff mentioned. CNN anchor Kate Bolduan also said at 11:12 p.m. EST that "tens of thousands" of mail ballots were expected to be posted at 11:55 p.m. EST, citing an unnamed source.

As for the 37,000 ballots, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Politico reported that city officials said 37,000 mail ballots were uncounted as of midnight Nov. 6.

An X post said that 50,000 ballots arrived in vans as an MSNBC reporter referred to that number of ballots during a live report.

But the ballots he was speaking about were already at the city’s election warehouse, and the vehicles were delivering election equipment from polling places that had closed. 

The claim is False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact check.