The News
Authorities are investigating at least two incidents of ballot drop-off boxes being set on fire in Oregon and Washington as the US election enters its final week.
Police in Portland, Oregon said they responded to an early-morning 911 call Monday of a ballot box on fire, adding that an “incendiary device” placed inside the box had caused the fire. A fire suppressant inside the ballot box was activated and able to save most of the ballots, according to the county elections director, with only three ballots damaged.
In a separate incident in Vancouver, Washington, local law enforcement said a ballot box caught fire after a device was stuck to the outside of the box, with local officials reporting that hundreds of ballots were burned, according to Oregon news channel KPTV. A Vancouver county election official described the incident as “a direct attack on democracy.”
Vancouver is in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, which pollsters predict will be one of the country’s closest House races — Democrats need the incumbent Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who won in 2022 by a handful of votes, to be re-elected to have a chance of flipping control of the House on Nov. 5.
The direct attack on ballot drop-off boxes comes a week after a fire set inside a postal collection box damaged several mail-in ballots in Phoenix, Arizona.