In a late-night incident local authorities found themselves dealing with two ballot box fires in the Pacific-Northwest area (Portland OR and Vancouver WA). The fire-related events happened around 3:30am‚ causing different levels of damage in each location
The Portland situation turned out better than expected — thanks to built-in fire-protection systems. Tim Scott from Multnomah County Elections office confirmed that only 3 ballots got damaged; the fire-suppression mechanism inside did its job well. The elections team is already working to contact those voters whose ballots need replacing
First-responders in Portland found evidence that someone put an incendiary-device inside the box — police and fire-fighters got there fast after getting emergency calls. The quick response time helped minimize damage to peoples voting materials
The Vancouver location suffered more extensive damage with hundreds of ballots getting burned in the process. Local law-enforcement teams are now checking both cases to find connections between these ballot-box attacks