Video does not show ballot box tampering in Glacier County, Montana

Ballot drop boxes became highly scrutinized in the 2020 presidential election, and as Election Day nears, claims about them have resurfaced.

"Montana Dem operative caught tampering with ballot box," a headline, shared Oct. 23 on Facebook from the conservative news website The Daily Wire, read.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

A ballot box incident was investigated in Glacier County, Montana, but county officials found that tampering did not happen.

The Facebook post includes a link to an Oct. 23 Daily Wire article that says a "Democrat operative" named Laszlo Gendler was videotaped appearing to try to tear a ballot box off a wall.

Featured Fact-check

X posts

stated on December 1, 2024 in a post

Kash Patel posted on X that “the FBI is gay.”

In the video, Gendler, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee employee, appears to pull on a ballot box in Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

A Montana secretary of state spokesperson confirmed that the person in the video was Gendler and said the "suspect’s name and details were turned over to Glacier County law enforcement." The spokesperson forwarded an email to PolitiFact from Crystal Cole, Glacier County’s election administrator, which said Laslo told her he was sent to check how secure the ballot box was. Cole’s email said the Montana Democrat Party had not notified the election office it would be sending someone to check the ballot box. 

Glacier County’s attorney, Terryl Matt, said in an emailed statement to PolitiFact, "After a review of the evidence, including the footage, we have determined that the issue is unsubstantiated. The behavior captured in the video does not constitute a legitimate attempt to tamper with the ballot box or the electoral process."

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee removed Gendler from his position as a precautionary measure. Gendler was released from questioning and not charged with any crimes, KRTV, a Great Falls, Montana, news station reported.

We rate the claim that a Montana Democratic operative was caught tampering with a ballot box False.