State and federal authorities are investigating a deliberately set fire that destroyed ballots inside a drop box in southwest Washington on Monday morning.

  • @[email protected]
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    2712 months ago

    The leader of the Washington State Republican Party said what occurred in Vancouver reinforces the need for Washington to ditch vote-by-mail.

    classic GOP destroy a thing so you can say it needs to be replaced because it’s broken

    • @[email protected]
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      562 months ago

      “If we use vote by mail the election won’t be secure!”

      Not necessarily

      “I’ll make sure of it!”

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      Drop boxes are only one aspect of voting by mail. Cameras, “election integrity guards” or other means and measures could be employed to help dissuade these terrorists.

      Mail in ballots are just as easily placed in any blue post office box or your own mailbox which is impossible for would be destructors/interceptors to know when your ballot is in the mail.

      Republicans can get bent.

      • @[email protected]
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        172 months ago

        Mail in ballots are just as easily placed in any blue post office box or your own mailbox which is impossible for would be destructors/interceptors to know when your ballot is in the mail.

        Republicans can get bent.

        They’ll just start blowing up the mailboxes, which would also serve the purpose of sowing distrust and unreliability in our postal system.

      • @[email protected]
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        82 months ago

        Republicans already destroyed the USPS, so home mailboxes are no better. High likelihood of ballots getting “lost in the mail” until after counting has stopped.

        I have had so many problems with our automated rent checks showing up on time in the last few years. I can clearly see our credit union sending them on time, and they’re eventually received with the appropriate timestamps, but we’re weeks late in arrival.

      • @[email protected]
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        72 months ago

        Russian propaganda mills actually hire B movie writers

        Have you ever seen a film from one of these countries? Russia, North Korea, etc? Those writers only hope to one day aspire to be at the level of B movies. I’ve seen porn with better plots.

    • @[email protected]
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      152 months ago

      Its also very GOP to be like “votes don’t matter, everythings rigged” and also be the ones trying to rig everything. Its been a successful strategy every since Reagan fucked over the Iran hostage crisis by starting Iran Contra

  • @[email protected]
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    1152 months ago

    Great, the people who are saying the Election was rigged, are actually the ones attempting to destroy ballots. Do they not see the irony at all in doing stuff like this?

    • @[email protected]
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      602 months ago

      They don’t at all. They know what they’re doing, they know their calling election interference disingenuously, and they know theyre the only ones allkwed to cheat.

      They just really really wanna be able to grab women by the pussy “like the good old days before the wokeness”

    • @[email protected]
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      142 months ago

      They don’t care about it being rigged or fair. They only care that their side wins, minority side or not.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 months ago

      It’s beyond irony. It is the Oceania doublespeak playbook. The Ministry of Truth was in charge of authoring all the lies.

  • @[email protected]
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    592 months ago

    Biden needs to declare this as an emergency and issue FBI investigation + more dropboxes at every government building.

  • @[email protected]
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    542 months ago

    “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”

    - David Frum

  • @[email protected]
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    462 months ago

    As someone local to the area, it’s telling that the drop box targeted is one of the more urban drop box locations in Clark County. The city of Vancouver itself leans blue, but goes red very quick once you get outside the city. This pisses me off so much, I’ve lived in Washington state since like 2006, and I’d never heard complaints about our voting by mail system from republicans until the big orange turd started his temper tantrum.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 months ago

      I’m sure if the maga people are going full holy war on democracy we’ll see polling places being shot up as well. These burnt ballots are likely going to look like small potatoes in a week.

  • @[email protected]
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    442 months ago

    Trump going win, because the fucking FBI didn’t do their fucking job and stop demostic terrorists. We all know these are maga fuckrts and you all know they love to go online and brag. I am sure millions of them should be on a fucking list somewhere.

    But if Harris doesn’t get enough EC votes then Supreme Court will decide the presidentancy and we know how they will vote.

    I just hope we have the guts to shut this fucking country down with largest general strike in history afterwards.

    • @[email protected]
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      332 months ago

      Trump is likely not going to win. But that doesn’t mean he won’t become president by some other means, or cause another insurrection.

      Either way the US is headed for tough time and it’s the fault of far more people than just the FBI.

      • @[email protected]
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        202 months ago

        If he does somehow become president, I will be taking all the time off possible (ie general strike) and trying to convince everyone else to do the same.

        Yes I’m in a “safe Republican” state. Don’t care, that “party” shouldn’t be in power.

    • @[email protected]
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      92 months ago

      A strike isn’t going to be effective in the slightest. The people on the right are saying the streets will run red with blood, they’re pushing for a civil war. That is what we should be preparing for if Trump wins.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 months ago

        I’m more worried what will happen when the orange rapist loses. Or even worse, it ends as some draw that is muddied legally and then all shit hit the fan.

        Either way, Stephen Gobbels Miller, in conjunction with corrupt Roger Stone, will be pulling all sorts of undemocratic shit to maximise chaos

  • billwashere
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    382 months ago

    Legit question: how do they figure out whose ballots got destroyed so they can vote again? Or do they even bother?

    • Ballots typically have identifiers such as voter information or barcodes that help election officials match them to specific voters, allowing them to contact those whose ballots were compromised and ensure they can cast a new vote.

      Voters who used the affected drop box after the last collection time are encouraged to contact the Clark County Auditor’s office to verify if their ballot was among those destroyed and to obtain a replacement (source)

      • Tiefling IRL
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        312 months ago

        So the onus is on the voters, meaning those votes are likely lost :/

        • @[email protected]
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          212 months ago

          I’m sure most of the people living there who recently dropped a ballot in that box will care enough to ask the same thing though.

          I called the election board near me recently and learned my vote was deactivated because I changed registration, so my new ballot will be counted sooner but if I do nothing they’ll just count it on 15 Nov

          • @[email protected]
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            22 months ago

            I agree that almost everyone affected would WANT to vote again; most of the work of voting is deciding who to vote for, and they’ve already done that.

            Another problem though is that not everyone affected will know that anything happened to their ballot.

            • @[email protected]
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              32 months ago

              But what other options are there? The ballots were destroyed, so there’s no way to know who to contact to let them know it happened.

        • @[email protected]
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          72 months ago

          If you are worried your mail in ballot is having issues, many states will allow you to cast a “provisional ballot” that only gets counted after they verify if your mail in ballot was processed.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 months ago

          Since the ballots hadn’t been collected, there’s no way for the state to know the identity of voters who dropped off ballots that were destroyed in the fire because those ballots were destroyed.

    • @[email protected]
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      122 months ago

      You can check if your ballot was received on a web site and they said if you know your ballot was in there, to reach out and request a new one.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      (from the point of the vote counters) They know because there are individualized bar codes on every envelope. They will just count every ballot that arrives intact. If they scan one and it’s from a voter who has already been counted, they’ll have to figure out if that’s voting fraud or a legitimate consequence of an act of arson/other problem–and it’s almost never voting fraud.

      (from the point of view of the voter) assume your ballot was destroyed, get another one, vote again.

    • Rentlar
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      12 months ago

      Your election process may vary, but usually mail in ballots are in a certification envelope with your name, address, and often a declaration of eligibility, voter signature and witness. Digital methods may have a barcode encoding this information, easily readable only by an election official.

      That identification can be used to trace your ballot if damaged/lost and to check for eligibility and that you only voted once.

      The contents are then removed from the certification envelope and the secrecy envelope containing the ballot is added with other votes and anonymised.

  • @[email protected]
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    182 months ago

    This is why I mailed my wife’s and my ballots inside the post office. It seems like a lot harder target than a box out in the open.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 months ago

      Not sure about this county but a lot seem to do this. Great idea for any that don’t already do it

    • @[email protected]
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      32 months ago

      Why wouldn’t they, imagination and cleverness is not their strong suit as a whole.

      That said, don’t let your guard down.

  • @morphballganon
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    42 months ago

    Actual solution:

    1. Make the privacy envelopes out of a non-burnable material

    2. Design them to completely enclose the ballot

    3. Strongly urge their use to reduce the likelihood of ballots lost to arson