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.

  • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    85
    ·
    2 months ago

    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.

    • Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      2 months ago

      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.

    • SuperSaiyanSwag@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 months ago

      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.

      • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 months ago

        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.