UPDATED: California Man Finds THOUSANDS of Unopened Ballots in Garbage Dumpster -- Workers Quickly Try to Cover Them Up -- County Says Returned Ballots from 2018?

Last night we received these photos from a reader in California. They appear to show hundreds of alleged unopened ballots in a garbage dumpster in California. We are working to verify. Big if true.

This is an exclusive from a Gateway Pundit reader in California.

Hey Gateway Pundit,
I thought you might find this interesting. My dad found THOUSANDS of unopened ballots at the garbage dump in Petaluma, California, north of San Francisco.

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From our reader:

My dad was throwing away some trash and saw them so he took some pictures. He told a lady who worked at the dump about it and she claimed that the county dumped them there. After my dad drove back around and saw the workers in the bin covering the ballots up with cardboard.

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Are Democrats trying to steal the election?

The guy crawling out of the dumpster in the green shirt worked there. He was covering up the ballots.

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The TGP reader then sent us a map of the location in Petaluma.

We will post any updates when he hear more from our sources.

UPDATE: According to a state source California does nto mail out ballots until October fifth and those already have return addresses.

UPDATE: Local KTVU from Oakland is running a report on Friday night about the ballots being found at the dump. The county admitted to KTVU today they were from the 2018 election. Blank ballots for the 2020 Election in California go out the week of Oct. 5.

UPDATE: Here is an image of a 2018 California ballot. This does not explain why the ballots in the trash are still sealed.

THE SEA RANCH, CALIFORNIA – October 21, 2018: Voting ballot: Absentee voting by mail with ballot envelope on USA flag. Absentee voting is voting-by-mail and allows voters who cannot visit the polls on Election Day, to cast their ballot by the US mail.

UPDATE: The County of Sonoma put out a statement saying the ballots were from 2018.
The county says the ballots were already opened. You can judge for yourself.

Help us stop a false report
Someone posted pictures on the web showing empty Vote-by-Mail envelopes from Sonoma County in recycling bins. The pictures are of old empty envelopes from the November 2018 election that were disposed of as allowed by law. pic.twitter.com/0FrhnD3jHg

— County of Sonoma (@CountyofSonoma) September 25, 2020