Do photos show a pickup truck carrying ballots "southbound on the 215 and Clinton Keith" in Menifee, California? No, that's not true: The U.S. Postal Service said, "There is no evidence that the items being transported were in Postal Service custody," and the Riverside County, California, Registrar of Voters told Lead Stories that it does not transport ballots in the beds of pickup trucks. Lead Stories also found no matching reports from established news outlets confirming the claim.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @RivcoCitizen account on X on Oct. 29, 2026. It read:
🚨RED ALERT 🚨
This truck carrying ballots was seen traveling southbound on the 215 and Clinton Keith in Menifee, CADate: 10/29/26
Time: 3:44pm
Location: 215 SB/Clinton KeithWhat kind of chain of custody is this??
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @RivcoCitizen on X.)
Neither image in the social media post is clear enough to read the writing on the cartons to identify their contents or source. However, they do look similar to trays used to transport mail by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Lead Stories found an example of the trays used for mail-in ballots in a photo gallery in an article (archived here) on the WPEC-TV website on Sept. 25, 2026.
This is what the image looked like on the WPEC website at the time of writing:
(Image source: WPEC website.)
Google Maps
Using Google Maps and Google Street View (archived here), Lead Stories confirmed that the truck shown in the social media post was traveling southbound on Interstate 215 (I-215) in Riverside County. Lead Stories found a location along that stretch of the highway that offers approximately the same view:
(Image source: Google Maps.)
The two images -- one from X and one from Google Maps -- are shown side by side below. The arrows and circles highlight matching features:
(Image source: post by @RivcoCitizen on X and Google Maps.)
County of Riverside Registrar of Voters response
The County of Riverside Registrar of Voters responded to the claim in a Nov. 2, 2026, email to Lead Stories. The email included a statement from Public Information Officer Elizabeth Florer, which read:
Based on the photograph alone, we cannot determine what is being transported in the back of the vehicle or who the vehicle belongs to. Therefore, we cannot verify any claims regarding its contents or ownership.
We can confirm the County of Riverside Registrar of Voters does not transport ballots or election-related materials in this manner.
US Postal Service response
The USPS responded to the claim in a Nov. 2, 2026, email to Lead Stories. The email included a statement from John Hyatt with USPS corporate communications, which read:
The U.S. Postal Service is fully committed to the secure and timely delivery of the nation's Election and Political Mail.
In this case, there is no evidence that the items being transported were in Postal Service custody...
Please be assured that the Postal Service is reviewing the matter.
In its email to Lead Stories, USPS noted that the trays in the back of the pickup truck had no clear Postal Service markings and did not include the green tags used to identify mail-in ballots. The trays shown in the social media post include red tags, which are used for political campaign mail. Therefore, even if the items in the back of the truck were from USPS, they would not be mail-in ballots.
The guidelines for tagging political mail are outlined in an Oct. 1, 2026, Postal Bulletin (archived here) and an Oct. 15, 2026, news release (archived here) on the USPS website.
This is what the image looked like on the website at the time of writing:
(Image source: USPS website.)
This cropped image from the @RivcoCitizen account on X shows the red tags on the trays in the back of the truck:
(Image source: post by @RivcoCitizen on X.)
News searches
Lead Stories searched Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) and found no matching reports about the claim from established news outlets using the search terms: "ballots," "truck," "Menifee," and "Clinton Keith."
