Someone set a Boston ballot drop box ablaze early Sunday morning, following a similar suspicious fire at a Los Angeles ballot box.
The Boston fire erupted inside an early voting ballot box at Copley Square about 4 a.m., the Boston Police Department reported.
Security cameras captured images of a man approaching the box with a flaming object in his hand, The Washington Post reported. Firefighters doused the blaze by pouring water into the smoking box.
On Monday, police identified Worldy Armand, 38, as the suspected arsonist, WCVB reported. Officers had arrested him on warrants at 10:50 p.m. Sunday near the site of the fire.
"I do not believe that this individual is plotting against our democracy. I think that he is emotionally disturbed," said Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins., according to the station.
The Copley Square ballot box contained 122 ballots, 35 of which were too badly damaged by the fire and water to be legible, the Boston Election Department reported on Twitter.
"What happened in the early hours of this morning to the ballot dropbox in Copley Square is a disgrace to democracy, a disrespect to the voters fulfilling their civic duty, and a crime," said a joint statement from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin before Armand's arrest.
Boston police and the FBI are helping investigate the incident. Police ask that anyone with information contact the Boston Fire Department Fire Investigation Unit at 617-343-3324.
On Oct. 18, someone set fire to a ballot drop box in Baldwin Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles, using a burning newspaper, McClatchy News previously reported. The drop box, outside a library, was set ablaze about 8 p.m.
Police recovered 230 "pieces of material" from the burned ballot box, but it was not clear how many were ballots and how many could be salvaged. That fire also is being investigated as arson.
