Ballot box fire disrupts Washington state voting just days before election
A ballot drop-box in Vancouver Washington got damaged in an early-morning fire destroying hundreds of votes. Similar incidents happened in Portland and Phoenix making authorities extra-careful about election security
In Vancouver Washington a ballot drop-box got burned down at 4am on oct-28th destroying hundreds of early-voting papers (a suspicious device was found next to it)
Steve Hobbs the stateʼs top election official made it clear: “We wont let anyone mess with our voting process.“ He told voters to look-up their ballots status on-line; those affected can get new ones
The fire happened in a high-stakes area where Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Joe Kent are in a tight race for Congress – their last match-up was super-close with Perez winning by just a few thousand votes about 2 years ago
This wasnt the first such problem in the area:
- Another box in Vancouver got hit early oct
- Portland had a ballot-box fire but only 3 votes got damaged
- Phoenix lost about 20 ballots when someone burned a mailbox
Gluesenkamp Perez wants more night-time security for ballot boxes since this is the second try to mess with voting in Vancouver within a month. The FBI is checking whats going on with all these fires happening so close to nov-5th election day
