Richard Hopkins is a former United States Postal Service (USPS) postal worker and contractor based in Michigan, who alleged witnessing ballot tampering during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In November 2020, he claimed to have seen workers backdating approximately 288,000 late ballots from New York at a USPS facility in Battle Creek, Michigan, to make them appear as if received on time. He shared these claims with the conservative activist group Project Veritas, which released undercover video footage of him detailing the alleged misconduct, positioning him as a whistleblower amid widespread election fraud allegations following Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump. However, on December 2, 2020, Hopkins retracted his statements in a written affidavit to the Michigan State Police, asserting that Project Veritas had misrepresented and edited his account. He clarified that while he handled ballots from New York, there was no tampering, and he passed a polygraph test confirming his revised testimony. No evidence of the alleged fraud was found by authorities, and the incident contributed to broader scrutiny of Project Veritas's reporting practices. Hopkins has since maintained a low public profile, with his actions criticized by some as either a genuine whistleblower effort undermined by pressure or an initial false claim amplified for attention.