Drivers traveling towards Cutler Bay, in southeast Florida, were witnesses of a very unusual sighting in the Florida Turnpike, as containers with hundreds of Miami-Dade ballots were found on the side of the road.
The Elections Department confirmed of the "electoral tragedy" on Oct. 29, adding that the ballots fell out of a county truck.
While addressing the incident, Christina White, Miami-Dade's elections supervisor, told the Miami Herald that the worker forgot to lock the back of the truck and, as they drove off, one sealed bin and one sealed bag fell out. White added that the containers remained sealed and the ballots inside had already been scanned and tabulated at the South Dade Regional Library's early-voting site a day prior.
Authorities were made aware of the hundreds of ballots abandoned on the side of the road when a passing driver retrieved the crate on a road near Florida's Turnpike in Cutler Bay, according to video evidence posted by "Only in Dade" on X.
According to the video, the people who found the ballots drove the items to a county police station, where authorities took over the already-scanned votes.
"Upon arrival at the police department, Election staff verified all seals were intact and nothing was tampered with or damaged," White said.
Protecting ballots at all costs
Although dropping a crate full of ballots on the side of the road can be considered an accident, White added that the Elections Department has zero tolerance for error, and therefore the employee who was driving the truck was terminated.
She said the incident happened around midnight and that the county worker did not immediately stop, leaving the ballots on the side of the turnpike.
"Thankfully, this was observed in real time by upstanding citizens who did the right thing and turned the bin and bag into the police department," White added.
Compromised ballots
This is not the only time that ballots in Florida have been compromised ahead of the election. Earlier this month, residents of Orlando's Pinewood Reserve subdivision said thieves broke into their mailboxes and shoved several unwanted items into a storm drain, including vote-by-mail ballots.
One of the neighbors who said his mail was stolen said residents found their mail inside the storm drain a couple of weeks ago, and added that thieves stole it from a bank of community mailboxes in the subdivision. The United States Postal Service said the thefts occurred after an arrow key --also known as master key-- was stolen.
"I found out our mail was stolen when my debit card was used fraudulently, and I didn't have any details at that time," said David Peterson, a resident at the Pinewood Reserve subdivision.
Elsewhere in the U.S., a ballot drop box in southwest Washington was deliberately set on fire, while a similar incident happened in Portland, Oregon, during the early morning of Oct. 28.
As the FBI and federal, state and local authorities investigate the incidents in Vancouver and Portland, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said that the state will provide 24-hour enhanced security around drop-off locations and added that "state and local election teams are fully dedicated to making sure every person's vote is counted fairly and accurately."
