In the final stretch before Election Day, ballots have been set on fire and damaged in two ballot drop boxes and a Postal Service mailbox in three states. Federal officials have warned that in recent months, some social media users have encouraged sabotage of ballot drop boxes.
Early on Monday morning in Oregon, Portland police responded to a fire they say was started by “an incendiary device” inside a ballot drop box. Oregon’s Multnomah County Elections Division said in a statement that three ballots were damaged. “Fire suppressant inside the ballot box protected virtually all ballots,” the statement read.
Hours later, another drop box was set on fire in nearby Vancouver, Washington, where officials say “hundreds” of ballots were badly damaged when that box’s fire suppression system failed to work.
Just a reminder that this is how election interference starts. One party arbitrarily accuses the other of election interference, then that party’s adherents decide to interfere with the election to “even things out.” Finally, the party that was falsely accused feels the need to interfere, thus proving the original false accusation. Soon the entire election integrity is undermined.
Only fascists and rival nations benefit from mistrust in democracy.
And people will be going to prison for this, right? Ballot boxes will have definitely been put in view of CCTV, right?
I hope the people committing these crimes make themselves, and maybe their car license plate, fully visible so they can be recognised and punished.
Read says it’s important to remember that drop boxes are often under video surveillance and in many places
So, hopefully. Why the weird energy?
What?
Yep. Guy was arrested this morning and will be facing interstate felony charges.
I suppose Trump can pardon him if he wins.
Not only do they have CCTV but also fire suppressing systems, which is why one of the boxes only lost 3 ballots.
One side. There is only one side actively destroying democracy.
I’d go even further, if there’s only two sides, and one is actively destroying democracy, then they’ve already succeeded.
You’re not wrong.
Which is by no means a call not to vote. But it should serve as a wake up call, people need to additionally organize their communities and set up support and mutual aid networks before it is to late. Both to avert the worst now, and to demand a better future
Aggregating some information in this comment based on what I’ve read throughout the internet.
- Authorities have identified the vehicle of the one in Oregon (and likely Washington) and probably know who’s behind it at this point. AP News
- Authorities have arrested the person responsible for the ballot fires in Phoenix ABC Phoenix
- There was a conversation on Truth Social from a user named Elwoodblues50 that suggested doing just this. I have no idea how coordinated it was, but it definitely sounds like something that has been going around right wing circles for a bit. sorry Reddit link
- These ballot boxes have measures to protect the ballots in the case of fire. One of the ballot boxes had up to 100 ballots destroyed, the others were in the single digits.
- Oregon and Washington both have websites that allow you to check the status of your ballot. If you know anyone in who may have been impacted by this, have them check the websites and request a new ballot if theirs wasn’t accepted. Oregon. Washington
ElwoodBlues50…
I Hate Illinois Nazis.
The irony would be lost on them.
You’re right, but fuck are they stupid. Blues Brothers is about two poor white boys raised in black culture, and is a celebration of said culture. The bad guys are cops, Nazis, and racist bumpkins.
They probably only saw Blue’s Brothers 2000.
Illinois Nazis
Illinoizis?
A reminder to everyone if you are mailing or seeing if ballots, nearly every state has a website you can go to check your mailed ballot status. It will usually list the date the ballot was mailed to you, the date they received it back, whether it was accepted, and the batch it was put in for counting.
You can use TrackVote.org to get to your state’s vote status page to verify your vote has been received and counted:
https://trackvote.orgSweet
Where I live we have a thing called BallotTrax. You sign up once and it automatically sends you notifications for that stuff so you don’t have to remember to check. I really like it.
Would it say if it was approved? I sent mine in, but it the pen I was using was dried up and I fucked up my signature a bit.
The info I get from AZ only indicates whether my ballot was accepted which count batch it was added to.
As far as I’m aware, the way it works is they verify your signature on the envelope, then open and confirm the ballot is legible and add it to the count batch. At that point it becomes completely anonymous with every other ballot. Not all of those will end up being useable, some will have issues not caught earlier but that will be a very tiny percentage.
Why? Why would the Democrats do this?
Oh wait.
Lol
The fact it happened so close together leads me to believe this was something discussed on group chats. I’m hoping that makes it easier to apprehend the perpetrators and also their accomplices. The wheels of justice move so slow, so all the more reason your vote is counted
I can’t believe democrats are doing this in equal proportion to republicans!!!
Edit: !!
Didnt see any such statements in the article…?
The really stupid part of this is that it’s happening in solidly blue states. People’s individual votes won’t get counted but it also probably won’t change much.
Rural Oregon is very red. There’s a behind the bastards episode on just how many racists there are in Oregon.
But the state itself is solidly blue and a few ballot box fires are not going to change that.
Before Oregon became a state, it fashioned itself as a whites-only utopia. When it joined the union in 1859, it was then the only state with laws specifically prohibiting certain races from legally living, working, or owning property within its borders.
It was started as a white ethnostate. Some people never really got past that.
Maybe enough to change a local election
Maybe, but I’m guessing that’s not the goal here.
Making people doubt the election’s integrity and fear potential violence for voting is probably the goal.
My thinking is this is not an effort to remove ballots, but to generate doubt about the results as well as create a pretext to restrict voting by mail in the future
I don’t believe they’re thinking that abstractly. They know [Blue State] and go there. Maybe a few are smart enough to go to [Swing State] + [Blue Area], but I think it’s about affecting the count moreso. It just seems stochastic, so I think the simplest logic is going to be the most common.
You’re using logic, that’s beyond these people
Id still vote by mail. You can recast a mail ballot if the box was attacked by a terrorist. Its a lot harder to follow your vote through if a terrorist decides to show up at your polling place. Four years ago I said the crazies are coming for the polls because on Jan 6th the only thing they learned is that they can’t wait until certification to try and influence the outcome.
Have any of the candidates spoken out against this and asked their supporters not to do this?
no and no
Jesus is expected to bring up the slack this year too with churches becoming temporary voting stations
and while Trump and Biden were in office our USPS got even worse with some rural locations being closed
Churches have been polling places in the U.S. my entire life in every place where I’ve lived.
You do live in the U.S., right? You’re constantly talking about U.S. politics and rarely anything else. So you either don’t live in the U.S. or you know that and you’re spreading misinformation. I wonder which it is? Because you say “our USPS” but you also call polling places “voting stations.”
but in this election candidates openly campaigned about them and with Christians consistently winning elections very worrisome more than ever
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Divine intervention?
Hey, mod here. Your comments can be taken as ignorant (not dumb/stupid), or trollish. If it’s the former, let me educate you.
Churches have been used as polling stations for MANY years, and is a completely common occurrence.
If you knew this and were trolling, please stop.
Although it is common to use churches as temporary polling places, I wonder how much ballots may be influenced by the location.
I haven’t read the entire article, but this raises some interesting points: https://theconversation.com/voting-while-god-is-watching-does-having-churches-as-polling-stations-sway-the-ballot-144709
I always put my ballot in a place that’s better watched. It’s not fool proof, but I feel like it’s easier for people to mess with drop boxes and mail boxes that are out in the open vs dropping it off inside the post office or inside the polling place if there’s a drop box there and election judges can watch them.
Yes, it would be great if such places were open 24hrs, but they’re not. Meaning those of us with “typical” work hours need the boxes that are accessible 24hrs.
Is this a new low for the US?
We were founded on tax evasion and slavery my dude. This isn’t even a bad Tuesday.
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