Allegheny County debunks social media video about Bhutanese-Nepalese American voters in South Park

A video circulating online of voters at a satellite election office in South Park last weekend has gone viral in conservative circles, with some suggesting that a group of “non-English-speaking ‘citizens’ ” supporting Kamala Harris inappropriately jumped a long line of people waiting to cast a ballot.

Allegheny County issued a statement Wednesday afternoon debunking any claims of improper conduct.

A Republican county councilman, who is the county GOP head and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, then posted the county’s statement on social media and also refuted some of the claims, as did a leader in Pittsburgh’s Bhutanese-Nepalese community.

Social media users shared videos Sunday of lines at the voting location at the South Park Ice Rink and showed a group, some of whom wore traditional clothing and spoke a non-English language, which turned out to be Nepali, gathering near the entrance. Several wore black hooded sweatshirts that said, “Vote Today PA.”

“BUSSES (sic) of non-english speaking ‘citizens’ are guided past Americans who had been waiting in line for hours to cast their early votes,” read one post that got nearly 800,000 views.

BUSSES of non-english speaking "citizens" are guided past Americans who had been waiting in line for hours to cast their early votes. These people, all wearing Harris Walz stickers, were directed through the voting process by a handful of "translators". pic.twitter.com/AkHWWBHQ9e

— Emma Cawwod (@emmagcawood) October 27, 2024

The post also shows a video of a man explaining his perspective on the situation while another person behind him holds a flag supporting Trump.

County officials said the video was taken Saturday.

Sam DeMarco, a Republican county councilman at-large, said he spoke with county lawyers, and they explained to him the group shown in the video is from the county’s Nepalese and Bhutanese community.

DeMarco said he has no reason to believe they are not American citizens.

“These are members of the refugee community, and they are registered to vote in Allegheny County,” DeMarco said.

Khara Timsina is executive director of the Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh. He said the group provided transport Saturday by vans, not buses, to South Park, for about 15 to 20 voters and their translators.

The community is concentrated in Whitehall in Allegheny County’s South Hills. Some of the members are ethnic Nepalese forced to flee Bhutan in the 1990s who then settled in refugee camps in Nepal.

They began arriving in Pittsburgh in 2008 as refugees, and Timsina said they started to become naturalized U.S. citizens in 2013-14.

Once naturalized, they registered to vote and have been voting in elections since 2016, Timsina said.

“Voter engagement has always been a part of our work,” Timsina said of his organization. “We encourage people to vote early if they want to, and we provide transportation.”

Timsina said his staff spoke with election officials Saturday in South Park before he arrived later in the day.

His staff told him the Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh allowed one translator inside the building to help with voters. He said the group kept one translator inside and some other volunteers outside to help with voters.

Timsina said no able-bodied member of the group cut in line. He said one elderly man with a cane was escorted inside so he could sit down while he waited to vote.

One video shows an older man walking with a cane among a group of voters up to a county election worker but then cuts out.

Timsina arrived later. He said nobody skipped the lines.

“None of these voters would even think of cutting into line,” he said.

Allegheny County released a statement corroborating that account.

The county said an employee provided instructions to the group shown in the video that elderly and disabled people were allowed to sit while they waited for their applications to be processed.

The able-bodied voters in the group returned to the back of the line, and the elderly and disabled were permitted to sit while they waited their turn to vote.

By Saturday, the voter registration deadline had passed, so anyone who voted at the satellite office was already registered. Only American citizens can register to vote in Pennsylvania, the county said.

Timsina said everyone in the Bhutanese-Nepalese group who cast a ballot Saturday is a registered voter. He said he determined one man in the community had not updated his voter registration and told him he could not vote in this election.

DeMarco said he wishes the county would have put out a statement sooner to explain what happened. He said, by Wednesday, videos already had gone viral and he had been contacted by several people about the situation.

The county put out its statement at 3:45 p.m.

DeMarco noted the videos were incomplete, so additional information would have been useful.

“I believe that the administration should have released a statement prior to today,” he said. “That would have been helpful in spreading more context.”

The county declined to comment on DeMarco’s statement.