Los Angeles County officials said Sunday that burned Vote by Mail ballots were found in an Official Ballot Drop Box outside the Civic Center in downtown Los Angeles, and vandalism was discovered the same morning at a voting center in Long Beach. Police were notified about both incidents as the county moved to check whether any voters were affected before Tuesday's California primary.
The damaged ballots were found Sunday morning in a drop-off box on a sidewalk outside the Civic Center after what county officials described as routine collection. Dean C. Logan, the county's registrar-recorder and county clerk, said the ballots showed fire-related damage and appeared to have been hurt between the most recent scheduled pickup and the following morning's retrieval. He said the county was working to identify the voters whose ballots may have been involved.
The timing gives the incidents weight that goes beyond the number of ballots involved. California voters are set to choose nominees for governor, secretary of state, controller, state attorney general and treasurer on Tuesday, along with races for Los Angeles mayor and Los Angeles County sheriff, and to vote on Proposition 50. In that setting, even a limited number of damaged ballots in a downtown ballot drop box is enough to trigger a police response and an internal search for affected voters.
County officials said the Long Beach vandalism, at a voting center in Cesar R. Chavez Park, was handled immediately by election workers and officials and did not disrupt voting operations. They also said both incidents were reported to the Los Angeles Police Department, but no arrests have been announced. Hilda Solis, the county supervisor who leads the board, said voting is a fundamental right and that any attempt to vandalize election facilities, damage voting materials or interfere with the voting process is unacceptable.
The two incidents were described as isolated, and preliminary information suggested only a small number of ballots were damaged. But the fact that police were notified of possible voter interference before a major primary is the part that will linger after the local response is over. What county officials now have to answer is narrower and more urgent: which voters were touched by the damage, and whether every ballot cast in those locations can still be tracked back to the people who sent it in.
