BREAKING: Skid Row Homeless Claim to Have Gotten Paid by…

A series of videos recorded on the streets of Los Angeles’ Skid Row have ignited fresh outrage over the integrity of local elections, with multiple homeless residents on camera claiming they were paid small sums of cash in exchange for casting ballots in favor of Democratic Mayor Karen Bass and City Councilwoman Nithya Raman.

The footage, recorded near 7th Street and Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles, has reportedly been provided to the Department of Justice.

The clips were first published on the TikTok account LaneNeedsSpencerPratt and subsequently obtained by The California Post, a publication that has been tracking voter registration irregularities involving the homeless population in the city for some time.

The videos show several residents speaking openly about the alleged payments, describing interactions with individuals they say regularly visit Skid Row to solicit votes.

In one of the videos, a man identifying himself as Kevin Shepherd stated that he received four dollars to vote for Bass.

A 39-year-old woman named Rene Johnson said she received five dollars after being directed to vote for the mayor.

She acknowledged that she was a Bass supporter but said she was unclear about some of the forms she had been asked to complete.

Johnson said she believed some residents were being taken advantage of.

Another woman, who declined to give her name, told the interviewer that she received roughly two dollars for voting.

When asked whether the people who solicited her votes came around frequently, she replied that yes, they come out there all the time.

She also confirmed that she had been told specifically to vote for Karen, a reference to Bass.

The account behind the videos said he visited the area after being alerted by a contact who worked nearby and had observed what appeared to be political organizing activity in the neighborhood in the period before the relevant election.

One resident noted that the activity had become routine and that people treated it as normal.

The allegations fit a pattern of concerns that have been building around voter registration practices on Skid Row for months.

The California Post had previously reported that thousands of homeless voters were registered to shelters where they did not actually reside.

One shelter in Venice was listed as the registration address for 185 voters connected to Raman, a shelter that had received $600,000 in taxpayer funding associated with the councilwoman’s office.

The timing of the new videos is notable because a related case is already in the federal court system.

The U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California charged Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, of Marina del Rey, with one felony count of paying a person to register to vote.

Armstrong, who spent two decades working as a professional signature gatherer for ballot initiatives, agreed to plead guilty to the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Court records indicate Armstrong operated on Skid Row beginning in 2025, offering homeless residents two to three dollars in cash, or sometimes a cigarette or a phone cord, in exchange for their signatures on ballot initiative paperwork.

Her plea agreement also indicates she registered some residents to vote, in some instances using her own former home address.

Her case represents a confirmed instance of the kind of conduct the new videos appear to depict.

The videos have not been independently verified by major news organizations, and no law enforcement agency or election authority had, as of the time of this writing, confirmed a formal investigation specifically tied to the allegations in the footage.

The individual identities of those depicted in several of the clips have not been fully established.

That said, the footage has created significant political pressure. Conservatives have called on state and federal authorities to investigate fully, arguing that the video evidence combined with the existing Armstrong case makes a compelling case for a broader probe.

The videos were handed to the DOJ, signaling that someone involved in obtaining the footage believes they document potential federal crimes.

Vote buying is a federal offense under Title 52 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits paying, offering to pay, or receiving payment for voting or for registering to vote.

The law applies regardless of the amount of money exchanged.

Even two dollars, if given in exchange for a ballot, constitutes an illegal transaction under federal election law.

The implications for Mayor Bass, should the allegations prove substantiated, are serious.

Bass won a closely contested race for mayor of Los Angeles, and the suggestion that political operatives connected to her campaign or allied organizations conducted systematic vote buying in one of the city’s most vulnerable communities raises profound ethical and legal questions.

Raman, who represents the 4th Council District, also appears in the allegations.

Residents in the videos named both her and Bass as candidates they were directed to support.

Raman’s connection to the Venice shelter that housed hundreds of registered voters and received public funding from her office has drawn additional scrutiny.

Critics have long argued that California’s ballot harvesting laws, which allow third parties to collect and submit completed ballots on behalf of voters, create opportunities for abuse.

The Skid Row situation, if proven, would represent an extreme example of how vulnerable populations can be exploited within that permissive framework.

Advocacy groups working with homeless individuals in Los Angeles have noted that residents on Skid Row are often in desperate circumstances and may not fully understand election law or their own rights.

The idea that individuals in that situation are being targeted for quick cash in exchange for votes strikes many observers as predatory regardless of partisan affiliation.

The California Post has indicated it continues to investigate the scope of the alleged activity and is working to identify additional individuals involved in organizing the payments.