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Ballot box fires highlight concerns they are being targeted by election conspiracy theories

Harry November 5, 2024

Two ballot boxes in the Pacific Northwest were damaged in a suspected arson attack a week before Election Day, and hundreds of ballots were destroyed at one location in Vancouver, Washington.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Portland, Oregon, a fire suppression system appears to have worked to contain the blaze, limiting the number of damaged ballots to three. Authorities are reviewing security cameras to determine who is responsible.

Here’s what’s happening, how rules and security measures for mailboxes vary across the country, and how election conspiracy theories are undermining confidence in their use.

What do we know?

Fires at distribution boxes in Portland and Vancouver were started by incendiary devices, police said. Officials said evidence shows the fires are related and that they are also related to an Oct. 8 incident in which an incendiary device was placed at a different distribution box in Vancouver.

Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said his office plans to contact three voters in Portland whose ballots were damaged to help them obtain replacement ones.

In Vancouver, hundreds of ballots were lost at a drop box at the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center because the mailbox’s fire suppression system did not work as intended. The box was last emptied at 11 a.m. Saturday, Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said. Voters who drop off their ballots there are then asked to contact the office to obtain a new ballot.

The office will increase the frequency of ballot collection and change collection hours toward the evening to prevent ballot boxes from remaining full overnight, when vandalism is more likely to occur.

Kendiy called the suspected arson “a direct attack on democracy.”

When and where can Dropboxes be used?

Drop boxes have been used for years in states such as Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington, where ballots are mailed to all registered voters.

Their popularity soared in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic as election officials sought options for voters who wanted to avoid crowded polling places or were concerned about mail delays.

In all, 27 states and the District of Columbia allow drop boxes, according to data collected by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The other six have no specific laws but allow local communities to use them.

Placement can vary greatly. In some communities, they are located inside public buildings and may only be used during business hours. In other places, they are outside and accessible at any time, usually with video surveillance or someone watching.

There have been occasional problems over the years.

Several drop boxes crashed into vehicles in 2020, and one in Massachusetts was damaged by arson. In this case, most ballots were legible enough for voters to be identified and substitutes sent. In 2020, a delivery box was also set on fire in Los Angeles County.

How should their security be ensured?

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency recommends that state and local election officials place drop boxes in appropriate high-traffic areas familiar to voters, such as libraries and community centers.

If distribution boxes are unstaffed, the guidance says they should always be secured and locked, located in well-lit areas and monitored by video security cameras. Many are pinned to the ground, monitored by cameras, or locked in public buildings where they can be monitored during working hours.

How have conspiracy theories contributed to concerns about mailboxes?

Ballot boxes have been in the spotlight for the past four years, the target of right-wing conspiracy theories that falsely claimed they were responsible for mass voter fraud in 2020.

A debunked movie called “2,000 Mules” amplified the claims and exposed the baseless theory that millions of people had dropped fraudulent ballots into ballot boxes under the cover of night of a ballot harvesting operation.

An Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. found no widespread problems with drop boxes in 2020.

Paranoia about delivery boxes continued into the 2022 midterms, when armed vigilantes began showing up in Arizona to police them and were restricted by a federal judge. This year, the conservative group True the Vote launched a website hosting live feeds from citizens’ mailboxes in several states.

In Montana, where a key U.S. Senate race is on the ballot, Republicans recently seized on a false claim of ballot box tampering to dispel doubts about the election process.

How have states responded since the 2020 election?

Republican lawmakers in many states sought to tighten rules on voting by mail after the 2020 election, and much of their focus has been on the use of ballot drop boxes.

Six states have since banned them: Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and South Dakota, according to research by Voting Rights Lab, which advocates for expanded voting access.

Other states have restricted their use. That includes Ohio and Iowa, which now only allow one delivery box per county, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Georgia’s Fulton County, which includes Atlanta and has more than 1 million residents, has 10 ballot boxes for this year’s presidential election. That’s down from 38 four years ago under emergency management caused by the pandemic. This is the result of an election overhaul by Georgia Republicans in response to former President Donald Trump’s allegations of a stolen election.

Overall, 12 states ban drop boxes or do not list drop boxes as an approved method of returning an absentee ballot, according to data collected by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The other five states have no state laws and do not use drop boxes.

Drop boxes have been around for years in Wisconsin, one of this year’s presidential battlegrounds, but support for them has been divided along ideological lines since 2020. In Wausau, a conservative mayor eliminated the city’s only mailbox; This action is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. state Department of Justice. The drop box has since been returned and is in use.

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