{"id":857143,"date":"2026-06-10T09:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/857143\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T09:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:20:22","slug":"fact-check-skid-row-woman-who-says-she-was-paid-5-to-vote-for-karen-bass-is-registered-to-vote-in-inglewood-not-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/857143\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Check: ‘Skid Row’ Woman Who Says She Was Paid $5 To Vote For Karen Bass Is Registered To Vote In Inglewood, Not Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shanekka Renee Johnson:<\/strong> My name is Shanekka Renee Johnson. I’m from Los Angeles, California. 39 years old.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> You live in Skid Row.<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> I live in Skid Row.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> And then did they come down here and try to pay you to vote?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> On a ballot?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> How much they pay you?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Five dollars.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Oh, they said, “Here, come and vote for these candidates.”<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Yes, sir.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> They told you who to vote for. So they told you to vote for Karen Bass or Nithya Raman.<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Karen Bass.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Did you vote for Karen Bass for $5?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> And they’re doing this for a lot of people?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> How often do they come down here?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Probably like three times a week.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Three times a week to get the ballots?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Wow. To vote for Karen Bass?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Karen Bass, or whoever else.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Nithya. Yeah, crazy. How long you been down here for?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Been down here four years.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Four years? You’ve been seeing this happen all the time?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> It’s like a whole business, huh?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Most definitely.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Would you call it fraud?<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah, fraud behavior.<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Fraud behavior, yeah.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Taking advantage of the homeless community.<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Yeah, you got votes.<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> That sounds bad, but you know, at the time I didn’t know that that was what was going on. I was just trying to make five bucks, you know.<\/p>\n

Interviewer:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. Sounds good.<\/p>\n

Johnson:<\/strong> But I didn’t do the fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shanekka Renee Johnson: My name is Shanekka Renee Johnson. I’m from Los Angeles, California. 39 years old. Interviewer:…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":857144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2499,5413,2961,176473,224,36423,5337,349809,349810,40288],"class_list":["post-857143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-downtown-los-angeles","tag-karen-bass","tag-la","tag-lead-stories","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-mayor","tag-losangeles","tag-renee-johnson","tag-shanekka-renee-johnson","tag-skid-row"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116725077235982820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}