⁍ Thousands are sharing photographs that allegedly show thousands of mail-in-ballots being disposed of in Sonoma County, California.

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⁍ This is false: the photos show old empty electoral envelopes from 2018 that were recently disposed of, in accordance with California’s electoral law.

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⁍ The claim feeds into a narrative echoed by President Donald Trump that mail-in voting, which is expected to nearly double due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will increase voter fraud.

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⁍ While the images are authentic and recent, they have been mislabeled.

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– Thousands of people are sharing photos on social media that appear to show thousands of mail-in ballots being disposed of in California’s Sonoma County. But that’s not what’s happening. “These pictures are of old empty envelopes from the November 2018 election that were disposed of as allowed by law,” Sonoma County posted on Facebook. “The old election materials were disposed of using the same process of recycling as in the past for previous elections.” A clerk-recorder-assessor-registrar tells Reuters that the ballots “were disposed of using the same process of recycling as in the past for previous elections.” The photos were shared on Twitter by Elijah Schaffer, a reporter for Blaze TV, but Twitter has removed them, BuzzFeed reports. “This tweet and related Tweets have been actioned under our civic policy,” a Twitter spokeswoman tells Reuters, which fact-checks the claims and finds them to be false.