Fires destroy hundreds of ballots in Oregon and Washington drop boxes

Authorities on Monday were investigating incidents of early morning fires destroying hundreds of ballots in ballot drop boxes in Portland , Oregon, and Vancouver , Washington.

According to the Portland police bureau, officers and firefighters responded to a fire in a ballot drop box around 3:30 am and determined that an incendiary device had been placed inside.

Tim Scott, the Multnomah County elections director, said that a fire suppressant inside the drop box protected nearly all the ballots, with only three being damaged. His office planned to contact those voters to assist them in obtaining replacement ballots.

Later, in Vancouver, located across the Columbia River, television crews captured footage of smoke pouring out of a ballot box at a transit centre.

Vancouver is the largest city in Washington's 3rd Congressional District, which is expected to have one of the closest US House races in the country between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.

Greg Kimsey, the Clark County auditor in Vancouver, told The Associated Press that the ballot drop box at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center also had a fire suppression system inside, but for some reason, it wasn't effective. Responders pulled a burning pile of ballots from inside the box, and Kimsey said hundreds were lost. "Heartbreaking," Kimsey said. "It's a direct attack on democracy."

Surveillance cameras covered the drop box and surrounding area, according to Kimsey. The last ballot pickup at the transit centre drop box was at 11 am Saturday, and anyone who dropped their ballot thereafter that was urged to contact the auditor's office to obtain a new one.

Kimsey said the office will be increasing the frequency of ballot collections and changing collection times to the evening to prevent ballot boxes from remaining full overnight when similar crimes are considered more likely to occur.

On October 8, an incendiary device was also found on or near a ballot drop box in downtown Vancouver. It did not damage the box or destroy any ballots, according to police. The FBI and other agencies had been investigating.

Both Washington and Oregon are vote-by-mail states, where registered voters receive their ballots in the mail a few weeks before elections and then return them by mail or by placing them in ballot drop boxes.

Last week in Phoenix, officials reported that approximately five ballots were destroyed and others damaged when a fire was set in a drop box at a US Postal Service station.