With a competitive House race in the balance, arsonists set democracy on fire.
Early Monday morning, ballot boxes at two locations in the Pacific Northwest were destroyed by fire—one in Vancouver, Washington, and another in Portland, Oregon—with election officials estimating that “hundreds of ballots” may have been burned.
In Portland, Oregon, police found that an incendiary device had been placed inside a voting drop box. However, a fire suppressant inside the box protected all but three ballots, and the local elections office planned to reach out to the affected voters to help them obtain replacement ballots.
Shortly thereafter, another fire was set at a ballot box in Vancouver, Washington, near a public transit center. Clark County Elections Auditor Greg Kimsey confirmed to Forbes that mail-in ballots dropped off in the receptacle over the weekend had not been picked up, and that “hundreds” have been destroyed. He urged voters who dropped their ballot in the box at Fisher's Landing Transit Center after 11 AM PT Saturday to contact Clark County Elections for a replacement.
By Monday afternoon, police officials announced they had identified a “suspect vehicle,” with surveillance images catching a Volvo at the crime scene that morning, according to a Portland Police Bureau spokesperson.
Authorities at a news conference said that the two fires were connected and that they were also likely involved in a Oct. 8 fire incident at a ballot box in Vancouver, Washington. The FBI is involved, working with state and local law enforcement.
At the presidential level, Washington and Oregon are historically solid Democratic states, with Joe Biden winning them in 2020 by over 19 percentage points and 16 points, respectively.
However, there’s a crucial House race in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District between Democratic incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican Joe Kent, whom Donald Trump endorsed. She narrowly won in 2022, with a margin of 2,633 votes over Kent, who also ran that year. Her victory was a shock in this red-tinted district, which 538 calculated as having a partisan lean of R+11.2.
Vancouver, where one of the fires was set, is the district’s “biggest source” of Democratic votes, according to Geoffrey Skelley, a senior elections analyst at 538.
“I hope the perpetrator of this reprehensible act is quickly apprehended—and local and federal law enforcement have my full support in working to keep our democratic process safe and secure,” Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement.
As investigations unfold, the potential implications of political provocateurs aiming to silence American voters extend beyond the immediate damage; they threaten voter confidence and participation in a democratic system already under strain by Trump and MAGA misinformation.
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