As pre-election passions intensify down the stretch to Election Day, two ballot drop-boxes in the adjacent cities of Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington were torched with incendiary devices on Monday morning, incinerating hundreds of ballots and potentially affecting the outcome of one of the tightest US House races in the country. “I strongly denounce any acts of terror that aim to disrupt lawful and fair elections in Washington state,” said Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs in a statement. 

The box in Portland fared better by far: Thanks to the successful activation of its internal fire-suppression system, only three ballots were damaged. However, in Vancouver, hundreds of ballots were fully destroyed as that box’s anti-arson technology failed. Both boxes had systems designed to release a flame-suppressing powder when a certain temperature in the box is detected. The Vancouver box had last been emptied at 8:00 am on Sunday. 

Someone dropped a match into a “drop box” in Clark County this morning…

Hundreds of ballots destroyed.

I was told that dropping votes inside an unattended box on the street was a good idea.

No way to tell what votes were burned or who they even belonged to. Absolute insanity. pic.twitter.com/QIa7aIQYlu

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) October 28, 2024

The Portland box was attacked at 3:30 am and the Vancouver box at 4:00 am. Portland police released photos of a Volvo S-60 they think was involved in both incidents. They place the model year between 2001 and 2004. The sedan didn’t have a front license plate, and cops weren’t able to read the rear tag. Investigators suspect Monday’s twin attacks are related to an earlier incident on Oct. 8 in Vancouver, in which a box was found aflame with some type of device lying next to it. Apparently, no ballots were harmed that time.  

Police think this Volvo sedan was used in the early-morning ballot-box attacks in both Portland (seen here) and Vancouver

Vancouver sits inside Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, home to what’s widely viewed as the country’s tightest House race. In 2022, Democratic Marie Gluesenkamp Perez beat Republican former Green Beret and CIA field agent Joe Kent by just 2,629 votes out of nearly 320,000 votes cast. This year’s race is a rematch, and Gluesenkamp Perez is considered the House Democrat at greatest risk of being ousted. In an addition signal of Gluesenkamp Perez’s peril, Trump won the district in both 2016 and 2020. 

In turn, the Washington-3 race could decide control of the House. 538’s simulator gives the GOP a 52% chance of keeping the reins. On the other hand, The Economist‘s model favors the Democrats by a 53% to 47% probability margin.

Considering Democrats account for 54% of mail-in ballots requested in Washington — versus Republicans requesting 36% of total requests — any attack on a drop-box would generally seem likely to benefit Republicans, particularly when those boxes are in urban areas that skew even more Democratic.  

Vancouver’s torched ballot box was in the district with 2024’s tightest House race, with Republican Joe Kent in a rematch against incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (AP via Oregon Live)

“We don’t know the motives behind these acts — sounds like a series of three at this point — but we do know that acts like this are targeted and intentional,” Portland Police Bureau Assistant Chief Amanda McMillan told reporters Monday. (Brilliant thinking, Sherlock!) “We are concerned about that intentional act trying to affect the election process.”  

Clark County Washington auditor Greg Kimsey encouraged people who’d dropped ballots in the box after 11 am Saturday to call his office and request a new ballot. He said his department will increase ballot-pickup frequency, switch to evening collection, and hire monitors to provide 24-hour supervision of the boxes. He foolishly disclosed that the monitors will be ordered not to confront arsonists, and to instead merely call 911 if they see something suspicious — maybe like flames and smoke pouring out of the box?

Last week, Phoenix, Arizona police arrested a suspect who allegedly set fire to a ballot drop-box situated at a post office in that city. About 20 ballots were believed to have been damaged in the incident that took place at 1:20 am. 

From an all-out “Trump is literally Hitler” media blitzkrieg to ballot boxes being torched in three states and counting, things are certainly heating up…literally.