Philadelphia city commissioner calls Elon Musk out for spreading false election information about nonprofit
Broad Street Love is a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia that helps thousands of people who are homeless and dealing with poverty. The organization's location in Center City serves as the mailing address for 5,200 unhoused Philadelphians.
The nonprofit assists them in establishing residency, which is a key step for them in getting identification, important documents and benefits. But a valid mailing address also ensures those experiencing homelessness can have a say in the election, which is a requirement to vote.
Despite the work Broad Street Love does in the community, the nonprofit has been forced to defend its reputation after a post on X accused them of voter fraud.
The post, which was commented on and reshared by X owner Elon Musk resulting in millions of views, stated that homeless services organizations harvested hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots in 2020 and that Broad Street Love has "thousands alone."
The post continued, adding: "No one knows who filled out those ballots."
"To address the claims directly, first off it's just not true," said Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein. Bluestein responded with his own post, calling out Musk for spreading disinformation.
"There were not thousands of ballots harvested at that location," he said.
In fact, Bluestein said less than 150 mail-in ballots were sent to Broad Street Love in 2020, most of which he says were not returned.
"Unfortunately, there's a lot of mis-and disinformation that's spread about Philadelphia's elections and no matter who it comes from, I plan to respond to set the facts straight," he said.
Broad Street Love is also setting the record straight, saying about 2,200 people have registered to vote with the organization's address, which Bluestein said, they are entitled to do.
In a statement, the CEO and President of Broad Street Love Laure Biron also said: "We have not and will never fill out ballots on behalf of our guests nor will we ever tell any guest who they should vote for."
After Bluestein's response, the person who originally posted then asked about this year's election.
Bluestein told him and CBS News Philadelphia, there are 2,278 registered voters using Broad Street Love's address. So far, 183 ballots have been mailed to people there and 42 have been returned.
Bluestein also said there is no suspicion that any illegal activity has occurred at the nonprofit in this election or in 2020.
The X user @fentasyl defended their post in their response to our question about spreading false information. CBS News Philadelphia also reached out to Musk via his company Space X and X, but we have yet to hear back.