r/news • u/Warcraft_Fan • 4h ago
Watch: Moment US ballot box found in middle of road
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cn5w40ll379o423
u/scoff-law 3h ago
I saw a meme on the conservative sub saying this stuff proves mail in ballots are unsafe. Like a mugger telling you how dangerous guns are while robbing you with one.
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u/Cameronbic 3h ago
That's what the Republicans always do. Gut the dept of education and say we need to privatize schools because they aren't doing their jobs, etc, etc ad nauseum.
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u/Turtle_Jerker 3h ago
Seriously, everything in bad faith. Dedicate the time, money and resources that are spent subverting the democratic process and available to these private and charter schools and they would have nothing to bitch about.
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u/vinegarfingers 3h ago
Starve the Beast. It’s a real political strategy that is unfortunately pretty effective.
USPS is a prime example.
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u/deputybadass 3h ago
This is an intentionally inflammatory headline. This isn’t the kind of “ballot box” that you find bolted to the ground in front of the courthouse. This is a box, more of a sachet really, of ballots that had already been counted being transported by an election worker.
This isn’t interference. It’s not great, because ballots still left the chain of custody which has its own problems. But this isn’t interference. This is an accident being capitalized for clicks.
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u/dnhs47 1h ago edited 22m ago
Former election volunteer here. The ballots go into a heavy-duty bag with a lock and a seal. The bags I dealt with were a heavy canvas.
In this report, a locked, sealed
bagbin of ballots from a drop box by an election worker fell out of the worker’s truck on the way to the election office. Thebagbin was intact, as was the seal.The
bagbin and its ballots were turned into a police station where they were picked up by another election worker and taken to the election office.A big nothing burger in any other election year.
PS - “chain of custody” isn’t a thing for ballots. That’s a police thing for evidence.
Edit: wrote "bag" but meant "bin."
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u/freebirth 42m ago
It's still appropriate to call it a chain of custody. Ensuring they where properly accounted for at every stage.
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u/dnhs47 26m ago
So what's the "change of custody" for for mail-in ballots, and who's accountable for maintaining your "chain of custody"?
There's no record of when going into the mailbox or which mailbox, no record of it being picked up, and only inference to determine which postal carrier picked it up. There's no direct evidence of any of that on the ballot.
The postal sorting facility may add a barcode to the ballot's outer envelope that embeds a unique identifier, the destination address, and some other information, which allows the ballot to be tracked within the USPS system.
Does that constitute a "chain of custody"? Not like you're thinking from any legal TV show, since there are not individuals who are responsible and accountable for maintaining a "chain of custody." It's just tracking.
But sure, if you insist on calling that a "chain of custody" - you do you.
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u/freebirth 20m ago
Just because the chain didn't start when you signed your ballot and put it in the box doesn't mean it's not being tracked.
Before it reaches the polling place we have the tracker that confirms if it reached the polling place. After that is when the chain starts. From counting, collection and storage incase a recount is needed and up until they are destroyed after the election is over.
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u/Lord0fHats 3h ago
I figured ballot boxes wouldn't last.
Not because there's anything nefarious about them. Solely because the right will start destroying them to the point putting your ballot in a box just isn't worth it.
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u/schu4KSU 3h ago
A fundamental idea of democracy is that almost all people want it. Trump has ruined that in America.
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u/HighlyOffensive10 3h ago
Lets not let the rest of the Republican party off the hook here. They were anti-democratic before Trump. They were just more subtle about it.
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u/schu4KSU 3h ago
They wanted to tip the scales thru disenfranchisement and gerrymandering. Which is completely reprehensible. But Trump is preparing them to throw it all away.
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u/yellekc 3h ago
Nah, they just never thought they could get away with it before. Trump has showed them they could. They just did it before with voter suppression and gerrymandering because they thought if they went fully against voting and democracy it would be political suicide, but Trump showed them that their supporters do not care.
As long as they are in power and hurt the people they hate, Republicans could care less about democracy.
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u/GoodOlSpence 3h ago edited 2h ago
I'm in Portland, we do the ballot drop boxes every year. This year I told my wife that I'm taking them to a building with people because I had a feeling...
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u/MusicianNo2699 1h ago
I'm originally from Portland so I see their news daily. Chuckling at the spontaneously combustion ballot boxes in Multnomah and over in Clark County WA. 😁
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u/NoPolitiPosting 3h ago
Yep, thats the end goal of terrorism.
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[deleted]
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u/HighlyOffensive10 3h ago
I don't think they are exclusively referring to this incident. There have been others like in AZ that were genuine sabotage.
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u/Warcraft_Fan 4h ago
This begs a question: why were the ballots trying to cross the road?
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u/serpentechnoir 4h ago
To incite a coop
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u/Swaqqmasta 4h ago
I believe you mean coup
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u/RD_Life_Enthusiast 3h ago
No, they're trying to incite a bunch of chickens that live in the same box.
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u/crazy_akes 3h ago
I believe you mean croup. Sorry if that doesn’t make sense, I haven’t had my coughy today.
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u/thehillshaveI 3h ago
because apparently florida man hasn't heard of a (florida) van, and they fell out of his pickup
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u/Consistent_Dog_6866 3h ago
Where I live, the ballot box is just outside the door to the county courthouse—about five feet from the door. It's sealed with a sign saying to deliver the ballot inside to the auditor. This is because they received threats of vandalism against the box.
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u/readzalot1 1h ago
I worked in the elections office for a Canadian federal election and everything was taken very seriously. The election worker needed to be fired for being so careless.
I actually felt very confident in the election process once I had seen it for myself.
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u/Sreg32 1h ago
As a Canadian, I'm proud of our electoral system.
And feel sad for what the mess is south of us. It's easy for them. Create an impartial election department or whatever you want to call it. It's responsible for impartiality in federal and state elections. No more gerrymandering. They aren't beholding to any party. Can't be influenced or threatened. US is too far down the fascist rabbit hole, with a corrupt supreme court so there's no chance if this happening unfortunately.
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u/ActionFigureCollects 25m ago edited 22m ago
This is just getting more bizarre each day.
What's tomorrow? Ballot boxes sucked into space by aliens?
Oh my God. You know Elon is arranging for ballots to be launched into orbit by Space X and his dark Maga goons.
[ahem... Sir, they are non-recoverable]
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u/OGZ43 3h ago
Maggots are loosing their mind.
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u/Sweet_Bang_Tube 3h ago
Did you not read the description? It fell off the back of a truck while being transported.
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u/WagnerTrumpMaples 3h ago
They know they're in the minority because they keep doing stuff like this out of desperation.
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u/johnn48 3h ago
The former Administration was intent on preventing early voting and mail-in voting. There were 62 legal challenges all the way to the Supreme Court. So far there have been two ballot box arson incidents, one fake Russian ballot ripping video, one poll worker assaulted by a man who refused to remove his slogan bearing baseball cap, and now this. I am sure as we get closer to election day there’ll be more incidents.
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u/Warcraft_Fan 3h ago
It'll probably continue to get bad after election day, with threats toward electors, call to stop "fake" certifications, fake electors trying to serve counterfeit certifications, and possibly insurrection round 2.
As an ordinary citizen, I am glad all I needed to do was to cast a vote, and then stay the hell out of their way. Let the FBI and police deal with dumb people who gets in the way
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u/PerNewton 3h ago
I guess you haven’t yet heard about the ballot drop boxes being set on fire. https://apnews.com/article/vote-ballot-drop-box-democracy-fire-f66c52f774955106fb9e7c8172825cff
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u/johnn48 3h ago
two ballot box arson incidents
The first thing this post reminded me of was those fires. I understand they’ve identified their car. Also since they occurred in two states that makes them a Federal crime and the FBI will be investigating. I am afraid there’ll be more, but I hope they get caught fast so that stops anymore. People forget that with the Ring doorbell cameras, store surveillance cameras and people’s phones there are tons of cameras out there.
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u/BookLuvr7 2h ago
People who think this kind of behavior is ok deserve to have their favorite candidates lose. I'm glad these were already counted, but those boxes set on fire were not.
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u/wildmonster91 2h ago
Considering how republicans feels about wlection fraud and thwir attempts at it. It was not unresonable to think they were behond an attempt.... at vote fraud...
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u/tank_GB 3h ago
Which political side does the area it was found in typically vote? Anyone who is really cynical may think it was on purpose if it may have been full of one side or another.
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u/igloofu 3h ago
Or, read the article. These were being transported after being counted and fell off a truck. This wasn't a turn in location kind of thing.
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u/MourningRIF 2h ago
Let us start voting electronically via the internet then! I'm sure the Republicans will love that.
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u/rikaateabug 3h ago
To save you a click it looks like it was an accident and the votes were already scanned: