Ballot drop boxes in two states were set on fire Monday, potentially damaging dozens of ballots.
In Vancouver, Washington, first responders pulled flaming ballots out of a ballot box at Fisher’s Landing Transit Center in the early morning, according to KATU News.
The Clark County Elections ballot drop box at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center was lit on fire this morning. Clark Co. Auditor Greg Kimsey says hundreds of ballots were inside at the time, the last pickup being 11AM Saturday. Full story here https://t.co/sYkz8ydEqH @KATUNews pic.twitter.com/a8vw0QXXoY
— Evan Bell (@evanbellKATU) October 28, 2024
Clark County auditor Greg Kimsey said that “hundreds” of ballots were potentially damaged and added that anyone who placed their ballot in the receptacle after 11 a.m. on Saturday should contact his office to confirm whether their ballot had been received.
Vancouver is located in Washington’s 3rd congressional district, where Democratic Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is seeking to keep hold of the seat she won two years ago, a major upset in a district that was long held by a Republican.
While losing her House seat could weaken Democratic hopes of regaining control, for her part, Gluesenkamp Perez has set herself apart from her Democratic colleagues by regularly voting against her own party. She voted against Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan and in favor of Republicans’ SAVE Act, and refused to endorse Kamala Harris.
Biden won Clark County, where Vancouver is located, in 2020, and in 2016, Hillary Clinton narrowly beat Donald Trump there by only 107 votes.
In Portland, Oregon, a ballot box was lit on fire Monday by what Portland police described as an “incendiary device.” The Multnomah County election office said that “fire suppressant inside the ballot box protected virtually all the ballots” and only three were damaged, according to NBC News.
It’s unclear whether the two incidents were related, but the FBI is investigating them both.
In Phoenix, a United States Postal Service mailbox also was lit on fire Monday, damaging a small number of mail-in ballots, according to The Guardian.
This series of burning ballots follows a nearly two-week-old warning from the Department of Homeland Security to law agencies across the country. Online chatter suggested that election deniers were plotting to bomb ballot boxes ahead of the general election, according to the department.
