Federal officials have been warning that in recent months, some social media users have been encouraging sabotage of ballot drop boxes. "It's a direct attack on democracy," said one local official.

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.

  • Flying Squid
    26•23 days ago

    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.

    • @greedytacothief
      28•23 days ago

      Rural Oregon is very red. There’s a behind the bastards episode on just how many racists there are in Oregon.

    • @folekaule
      25•23 days ago

      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

      • @[email protected]
        3•23 days ago

        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.

    • @errerEnglish
      9•23 days ago

      You’re using logic, that’s beyond these people