Did the FBI, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, seize vote counting machines in Texas and Arizona? No, that's not true: The claim originated from a social media account that has been the subject of several Lead Stories fact checks, and the creator's Facebook page lists its category as "Comedian." The image used in the post showing law enforcement officers is from an FBI raid of an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, in January 2026, not November 2026.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @PaulGoldEagle account on X on Nov. 7, 2026. It read:
FBI AND DHS SEIZE VOTE COUNTING MACHINES IN TEXAS AND ARIZONA
By Jonathan GregoryAustin, TX - November 7, 2026
The FBI in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security is currently seizing vote counting machines in Texas and Arizona with Nevada to follow.
This is what one of the images used in the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @PaulGoldEagle on X.)
The post is embedded below:
FBI AND DHS SEIZE VOTE COUNTING MACHINES IN TEXAS AND ARIZONA By Jonathan Gregory Austin, TX - November 7, 2026 The FBI in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security is currently seizing vote counting machines in Texas and Arizona with Nevada to follow. These states along with California share a border with Mexico a primary entry point for large numbers of illegal immigrants who crossed during previous Democratic administrations. The policy involved keeping the borders open to facilitate the influx of an undocumented population thereby securing votes without the requirement of presenting identification. The machines now under federal control contain the records of those registrations. This situation presents an opportunity for the policies of Donald Trump. It is a case of flushing the snakes out of their dens and casting a net to catch the fish. The voter registration process requires names and addresses so ICE can locate the individuals who registered without citizenship verification. Officials who previously claimed the border crossings produced no voting impact must now address the machine data. The seizures place the full registration lists into the hands of federal investigators. Previously when the individuals were hiding in private residences they were much harder to track down. The registration records remove that barrier and allow targeted enforcement. Americans who support secure borders and accurate elections now have the machine seizures as the next step in the review. The full contents of the seized equipment must remain under federal examination while the connection between the open border and the voter rolls is documented. The operation continues in the border states that recorded the largest registration increases. @TrumpNews
-- Paul White Gold Eagle (@PaulGoldEagle) November 7, 2026
Lead Stories did a reverse image search (archived here) of the photo of the law enforcement officials and found the match is an Associated Press image from Jan. 28, 2026, which was published by several news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal (archived here). This is a screenshot from the Wall Street Journal article about the raid in Fulton County, Georgia, showing the image:
(Image source: Wall Street Journal.)
The @PaulGoldEagle account on X copied its post from content posted by a Facebook (archived here) profile with the name Jonathan Gregory. The Facebook profile shows that the account is classified as "Comedian." Here is what the Facebook profile looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: @JonathanGregory account on Facebook.)
Although the account presents its content as news, Jonathan Gregory has been the subject of several fact checks published by Lead Stories.
Searches of Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) of the claim did not generate any relevant results.
Lead Stories has contacted the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for comment and will update this article when a response is received.
