PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Incendiary devices were set off Monday at two ballot drop boxes — one in Portland and another in nearby Vancouver, Washington — destroying hundreds of ballots in what one official called a “direct attack on democracy” about a week before a heated Election Day.
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...within a few hours, another fire was discovered at a transit center drop box across the Columbia River in Vancouver. Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.
...The ballot box in Vancouver also had a fire suppression system inside, but that failed to prevent hundreds of ballots from burning said Greg Kimsey, the longtime elected auditor in Clark County, Washington, which includes Vancouver.
“Heartbreaking,” Kimsey said. “It’s a direct attack on democracy.”
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Authorities said at a news conference in Portland that enough material from the incendiary devices was recovered to show that the two fires Monday were connected — and that they were also connected to an Oct. 8 incident, when an incendiary device was placed at a different ballot drop box in Vancouver. No ballots were damaged in that incident.
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In Phoenix last week, officials said roughly five ballots were destroyed and others damaged when a fire was set in a drop box at a U.S. Postal Service station there.
