Votes cast in two toss-up House races have been damaged after ballot drop boxes were set on fire in Portland, Oregon, and neighboring Vancouver, Washington.
Authorities are investigating the incidents, which occurred early Monday, almost a week before Election Day. Local officials said that three ballots in Portland were damaged and that potentially “hundreds” have been affected in Vancouver.
The ballot box arson took place in two competitive House districts, where Democrats and Republicans are hoping to hold one seat and flip the other in the Pacific Northwest. Both Oregon’s GOP-held 5th Congressional District and Washington state’s Democratic-held 3rd Congressional District are considered toss-ups.
Oregon Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer became the first Republican to win the district in roughly 25 years after she flipped the seat in the 2022 midterms. She ran against progressive candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner two years ago but will be facing off against an opponent who has previously beaten her in legislative races, state Representative Janelle Bynum.
Democrats have a slight advantage in the 5th District, but roughly a third of voters are unaffiliated and both candidates have tried to play to that, casting each other as extreme.
People drop off their ballots in front of the Los Angeles County registrar’s office on Monday in Norwalk, California. Ballot drop boxes were set ablaze in Oregon and Washington early Monday.
Frederic J. Brown/Getty Images
In Washington, freshman Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat, is defending her seat in a rematch against Trump-backed Republican Joe Kent. Gluesenkamp Perez pulled off an upset victory two years ago when she defeated Kent by 2,629 votes in a district that hadn’t elected a Democrat in over a decade.
After Monday’s incident, Gluesenkamp Perez told her constituents on X (formerly Twitter): “Any voter who returned their ballot to the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center ballot drop box in Vancouver — at any point this weekend —should contact the Elections Division of the Clark County Auditor’s office immediately to request a replacement ballot, due to an arson at the ballot drop box.”
Kent, who has promoted former President Donald Trump‘s election fraud claims, which are unsubstantiated, has urged his constituents to check the status of their mail-in ballots and not be discouraged by the recent arson incident. He added that he voted by mail last week.
“Stay focused on driving voter turn out & early voting, don’t be deterred from voting by a cowardly act of terrorism,” Kent tweeted. “Vote early, check your voter status & have confidence that our great law enforcement officers…will stop whoever attacked our democratic process.”
Cornell Clayton, the director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute of Public Policy and Public Service at Washington State University, told Newsweek that the race between Gluesenkamp Perez and Kent will be close but noted that Washington’s 3rd District is a solidly Republican district.
Registration by party is not needed to vote in state elections, but Washington voters must declare a party in the presidential primaries. In March, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by nearly 30,000 in the 3rd District.
“Joe Kent is an interesting candidate,” Clayton said. “It’s unclear how he will fare this time. In 2022, he really moved to the extreme MAGA side of the party, and he was on Fox News almost once a week. He made some pretty outrageous statements. He’s tried to moderate his rhetoric a little bit, and so I think many of the Republican voters who defected from him in 2022 will come home.”
Clayton added that while higher voter turnouts have traditionally benefited the Democratic Party, “that’s changed a lot in the last couple election cycles because of the realignment of the two parties.”
“I would actually expect higher turnout to favor Joe Kent and the Republicans,” he said about the 3rd District race.
Suzanne Almeida, the director of state operations at Common Cause, a nonpartisan public interest group, told Newsweek that people should still feel safe about voting early if they want to and that drop boxes across the country remain well secured.
“They are isolated incidents. Voters who think that they have been affected can check the status of their ballot online, both in Washington and in Oregon, and they should be calling their local elections officials if they have questions,” Almeida said.
“Voters are not in any way out of options, but it is important that if they think they may have been affected, they take steps to make sure that their vote can still be cast and counted,” she said.
“We live in a country where people’s votes are their voices, and it’s really important that those votes get counted,” she continued. While the recent incidents are “concerning,” people should not be concerned that they are widespread, she added.
Clayton agrees, saying, “Historically, Washington elections have been extremely well run.”
