A ballot drop box damaged in a suspected arson incident in Vancouver on Oct. 28. It was located in a Democratic-heavy precinct.

Hundreds of ballots were damaged or destroyed due to arson attacks in Vancouver and Portland early Monday morning, grabbing national attention and garnering condemnation from elected officials throughout the Pacific Northwest.

The Vancouver Police Department said in a statement that officers removed smoldering ballots from a drop box in east Vancouver at about 4 a.m., while the Portland Police Bureau reported that a suspect driving a Volvo was caught on surveillance camera near the Portland ballot box.

Material recovered from the Portland ballot box have given investigators enough evidence to tie the vehicle to the Oct. 28 arson in east Vancouver as well as a suspicious device found near a ballot drop box in downtown Vancouver on Oct. 8. Both fires are being investigated by the FBI.

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said in a statement that he was saddened by the incident and called it “an attack on American democracy.” His office reported that hundreds of ballots were in the drop box, which elections workers had last emptied at 11 a.m. on Oct. 26.

Kimsey told the Associated Press that the ballot box had a fire suppression system that did not activate after the incendiary device went off. Surveillance cameras were in place that cover the drop box and surrounding area, he added. The county will be changing its ballot retrieval process as well, Kimsey said; ballots will be retrieved in the evening, rather than in the morning, so there are fewer ballots left in the drop boxes overnight.

Election officials in Clark County are attempting to sort through ballots that were not completely destroyed by the fire and identify the voters who have not yet requested a replacement ballot. All Washington voters can view the status of their ballot at voter.votewa.gov to check if it has been accepted.

Locally, the Pacific County Auditor’s Office has taken steps in recent weeks to enhance its physical election security.

The department contracted with the sheriff’s office last month for deputies to provide security on election nights at the auditor’s office’s locations in South Bend and Long Beach through 2026. At least one fully equipped and uniformed corrections deputy will provide security at each location.

“This is just a precautionary security measure to protect my election staff and election equipment during election nights when we are alone after normal business hours,” Alex Gerow, the county auditor, said at the time.

Reaction

The attacks were denounced by officials in the region, including Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs. In a statement, Hobbs said his office takes the security of election workers seriously “and will not tolerate threats or acts of violence that seek to undermine the democratic process.”

“I strongly denounce any acts of terror that aim to disrupt lawful and fair elections in Washington state,” he added. “Despite this incident, I have complete confidence in our county elections official’s ability to keep Washington’s elections safe and secure for all voters.”

U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Skamania) said she was “incredibly thankful” to the first responders who arrived on the scene and put out the fire, adding “there is absolutely zero place in our democracy for political violence or interference against our fellow citizens, election workers, or voting infrastructure.”

“Our right to vote needs to be protected under all circumstances. We can’t yield to intimidation, and we must continue to stand up against unpatriotic acts such as this one,” the congresswoman stated. “I am requesting an overnight law enforcement presence be posted at all ballot drop boxes in Clark County through Election Day. Southwest Washington cannot risk a single vote being lost to arson and political violence.”

Her Republican challenger, Joe Kent, stated in a social media post he was confident authorities will “stop whoever attacked our democratic process.”

“Stay focused on driving voter turn out & early voting, don’t be deterred from voting by a cowardly act of terrorism,” he added.

Drop boxes, and the practice of voting by mail in general, have come under fire from Donald Trump and his allies since his loss in the 2020 election. The former president has claimed, without providing evidence, that mail-in voting is susceptible to widespread fraud.

In Vancouver, the drop box that was targeted was located in a Democratic-leaning precinct that gave Perez nearly 70% of the vote in her 2022 congressional race.

Voting by mail has been used in Washington and Oregon for decades, generally without incident, and the two states have enjoyed voter turnout rates well above the national average in every presidential election cycle this century. The voting method is also used heavily in other states in the West, including Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and California.

Jim Walsh, a 19th District legislator from Aberdeen and chair of the Washington State Republican Party, used the arsons to call for Washington state to return to in-person, same-day voting.

“Our experiment with 100% mail-in-voting is not secure, because of the broken chain-of-custody issues inherent in mail-in voting,” he said in a statement. “These arson attacks are proof of that.”

NOTE: A paragraph detailing the status of the ballots that were in the drop box at the time it was set on fire has since been updated.