In the early morning hours of Monday, Oct. 28, just nine days ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a disturbing series of politically motivated arson attacks left two ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington engulfed in flames. Homemade incendiary devices affixed to the boxes—emblazoned with the expressions “Free Gaza” and “Free Palestine”—were the instruments responsible for lighting a great many residents’ right to vote on fire, further cluttering an already chaotic election cycle. Police are on the lookout for a dark Volvo S-60 driven by a man in his late 30s, as seen by security cameras at the scene of each arson. Little else has been ascertained about the suspect.
Regarding the incident in Oregon, Portland police responded to a fire at a ballot drop box near Southeast 11th Avenue and Belmont Street around 3:30 a.m., where security guards at the Multnomah County Elections Division had fortunately already extinguished the fire mere minutes after it’d been started. Nearly all of the ballots were perfectly preserved due to the fire suppressant used in the extinguishing; just three were left only partially damaged. However, in Vancouver, hundreds of ballots were destroyed entirely despite the drop box being equipped with a built-in fire suppression system, which, evidently, was faulty.
Authorities believe these incidents are connected, indicating this was a coordinated attack aimed at disrupting the electoral process. It is unclear whether or not the aforementioned emblazonments echoed the promotion of a Pro-Palestinian position, or were simply there to exploit the preexisting political divide amongst Americans pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The attacks were met with widespread condemnation from government leaders across the two states. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek were very direct in their denunciation, labeling the incidents “un-American” and subsequently calling for heightened vigilance in order to preserve the electoral process’s integrity.
These attacks have highlighted the vulnerabilities within states that rely heavily on mail-in voting. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security had previously flagged ballot drop boxes as “soft targets,” and recent events have underscored this characterization. As a response to the incidents, election officials in Oregon and Washington implemented enhanced security, including 24-hour surveillance of ballot drop boxes and increased law enforcement presence in the affected areas. Investigations into these incidents are being led by the FBI, which is working in conjunction with local law enforcement to identify the culprit.
Election officials in both states reached out to the affected voters whose ballots were destroyed to ensure they received replacements. However, the psychological impact of the attacks may have deterred some voters from participating in the electoral process entirely—an auxiliary outcome possibly intended by the perpetrator to undermine a fundamental doctrine of democracy: that everyone has an equal, irrevocable right to vote.
