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Project Veritas video claims Ilhan Omar ballot harvesting before poll, Internet says it's a 'demonic covering'

'Numbers do not lie. …You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these; my car is full,' Liban Mohamed can be heard saying in the video

Project Veritas, a New York-based right-wing activist group, uploaded a video on their channel claiming that it contained the results of an investigation into allegations against Democrat Rep Ilhan Omar in Minnesota of ballot harvesting ahead of the 2020 election. Hers is a key swing state in the presidential race.

In the clip uploaded by the group, shows an operative, Liban Mohamed, bragging about collecting hundreds of ballots. “Numbers do not lie. Numbers do not lie. … You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these; my car is full,” Mohamed can be heard saying in the video. It also contained testimony from Omar Jamal, a whistleblower who called Omar’s alleged ballot harvesting an “open secret". “She [Ilhan Omar] will do anything that she can do to get elected and she [Ilhan Omar] has hundreds of people on the streets doing that,” said Jamal.

James O’Keefe, the founder and CEO of Project Veritas, said: “Ballot harvesting is real, and it has become a big business. Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities — and have turned the sacred ballot box into a commodities trading desk. We are showing Americans what is really going on in one of our great cities — but, it is not me saying — we have the operatives on tape saying it all themselves.”

Jared Edge, the chief legal officer for Project Veritas, warned that Mohamed and other ballot harvesters could be punished for their alleged violations of the law. “The federal laws, 18 USC §597 and 52 USC §10307(c), are quite clear,” he said. “In the case of 18 USC §597, it is punishable by up to two years in prison and in the case of 52 USC §10307 it’s punishable by up to $10,000 in fines and up to five years in prison.”

He added: "The federal laws 52 USC §20511, 18 USC §594, and 52 USC §10307(b) and the Minnesota statue 211B.07 prohibit anyone from using undue influence, threats, intimidation, or fraud to influence a person’s vote or to influence them to vote at all. It is also a violation of federal law for anyone who votes for others illegally... In addition to those statutes, Minnesota has another statute, 211B.11(3), which makes it a misdemeanor to induce or persuade a voter to vote for or against a candidate while transporting the voter to the polls."

People reacted to this news on social media. Many of the users wanted to see Omar stapping down over the report while others did not believe that she will face any consequence since she has faced worse allegations before. One of them was the rumor that her second husband was actually her brother whom she married in order to facilitate his US residency application. "If she's not removed for marrying her brother, she's not being removed for this," one of them wrote, while another said, "She will not be touched. She will get away with it. A demonic covering." A third remarked, "Until the handcuffs are on.......means nothing." A fourth opined, "How many stories are there about Omar breaking the law? What's the point? Obviously, nothing is going to be done about it" A fifth said, "A serious investigation of Ilan Omar is needed, especially after evidence of ballot harvesting by her constituents."

However, many did not believe the group's reporting as they said that it was not a reliable source of information. "The Project Veritas is not credible," one of them wrote, while another said, "As soon as I see 'PROJECT VERITAS' listed as the source, I know it's going to be as big a pack of lies as anything coming from AIG or creation dot com." A third noted, "Project Veritas is an American right-wing activist group. The group uses 'disguises and hidden cameras to uncover supposed liberal bias and corruption'. The group is known for producing deceptively edited videos about media organizations and left-leaning groups."