Oregon State Police and Washingtonin the northwest of USAreported this Monday that it is investigating the burning of several ballot boxes that were burned with hundreds of early voting ballots inside just over a week before the elections.
The Portland Police Department, in Oregon, has announced the opening of an investigation after discovering on Sunday night “an incendiary device” inside a sidewalk ballot box in the Central City district. “Only three ballots were damaged and the Department of Elections will contact those three voters so they can receive replacement ballots,” said Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott.
A similar event was reported a short time later in Vancouver, Washington state, where an early voting ballot box “it was smoking and on fire”, as indicated by the Metropolitan Police Department. Images shared on social networks show several agents trying to put out the flames while trying to rescue hundreds of ballots deposited inside the mailbox.
Some of them appear completely burned, although At the moment the exact number of votes affected is unknown. The incendiary devices were placed on the outside of the mailboxes, the Police have assessed.
A suspicious vehicle
Authorities reported at a news conference in Portland that enough material had been recovered from the incendiary devices to prove that the two incidents were related. They are also connected to another incendiary device placed in another Vancouver ballot box on October 8.
The Police have stressed that, for now, A “suspicious vehicle” has been identified. Security camera footage captured a Volvo stopping at a ballot box in Portland shortly before security personnel discovered the fire, Portland Police spokesman Mike Benner said at a press conference.
Both election boxes They had fire suppression systems designed to activate when the temperature inside the boxes reaches a certain point, covering the ballots inside with a fire-suppressing powder. The system worked at the Portland polling station and security personnel nearby helped extinguish the flames. But, for unknown reasons, it was not activated to prevent ballot destruction in Vancouver.
These incidents occur eight days before the November 5 elections, and they are not an isolated fact. On October 24, agents arrested two people accused of setting fire to a mailbox with early voting ballots in different suburbs of the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area.
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