Federal prosecutors’ confirmed voter-registration fraud case involving homeless people on Los Angeles’ Skid Row drew new attention after videos surfaced of several people claiming they received money to vote for specific candidates.
The federal case centers on Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, of Marina del Rey. Prosecutors charged Armstrong in May with one felony count of paying another person to register to vote. Federal prosecutors said Armstrong, a longtime petition circulator, paid people, including homeless people on Skid Row, to register to vote and sign ballot petitions.
Armstrong has agreed to plead guilty, according to the Department of Justice. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
The DOJ case does not allege that Armstrong paid anyone to vote for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Los Angeles City Council Member Nithya Raman, or any other candidate. It also does not allege that she paid anyone to cast a ballot.
That distinction matters as a separate set of videos circulates online, showing people on Skid Row claiming they received small cash payments to vote for Bass or Raman. The videos were reported by the New York Post, citing footage obtained by The California Post. The Dallas Express has not independently verified the footage, and federal authorities have not publicly connected those videos to the Armstrong case.
Registration Case Confirmed
The DOJ said Armstrong worked for approximately 20 years as a “petition circulator,” collecting voter signatures for ballot initiatives, referendums, and recalls.
According to her plea agreement, Armstrong drove around Los Angeles to find registered voters to sign official petitions. Coordinators paid her based on the signatures she collected from registered voters.
Prosecutors said Armstrong solicited petition signatures on Skid Row because the area had a high concentration of people willing to sign petitions in exchange for money.
Armstrong regularly paid or offered to pay people $2 to $3 in cash to sign her petitions, according to the DOJ. Starting no later than 2025, prosecutors said she also began offering payment to people who were not registered to vote if they completed voter registration forms.
Some homeless people did not have an address to use on the forms, prosecutors said. On several occasions, Armstrong provided homeless individuals with her own former Los Angeles address so they could list it on registration paperwork.
Because California automatically sends a vote-by-mail ballot to every registered voter, the DOJ said ballots in some homeless individuals’ names could potentially have been sent to Armstrong’s former residence, where those individuals did not live or collect mail.
“False registrations undermine Americans’ faith in elections – even more so when payoffs are involved,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ Civil Rights Division said.
New Videos Make Broader Claims
The newer video claims go further than the DOJ case.
Those claims, if true, would involve alleged vote buying rather than payment for voter registration. Federal law prohibits paying, offering to pay, or accepting payment for voting or registering to vote.
No law enforcement agency has publicly confirmed charges tied to the specific candidate-related claims in the videos.
The allegations come as Raman has advanced to a November runoff against Bass in the Los Angeles mayoral race, according to The Associated Press. The race is officially nonpartisan, though both Bass and Raman are Democrats.
AP reported that Raman moved past former reality television personality Spencer Pratt after Los Angeles continued counting mail ballots after Election Day. Bass received less than 35% of the vote in incomplete returns, signaling a vulnerable position for an incumbent, the outlet reported.
Election Integrity Questions
The Armstrong case gives federal prosecutors a confirmed example of cash payments tied to voter registration activity on Skid Row.
The newer videos raise a separate question: whether anyone went beyond registration payments and paid people to support specific candidates.
For now, the verified facts remain narrower than the viral claims. The DOJ has charged Armstrong with paying someone to register to vote and said she agreed to plead guilty. The candidate-specific vote-buying claims remain unverified unless federal authorities, local election officials, or court filings confirm them.
The FBI and investigators with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California investigated the Armstrong case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Wheat and Nandor Kiss are prosecuting it.
