(FiveNation.com)- The Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office and the United States Postal Service (USPS) are investigating an incident in which a box with 104 sealed mail-in ballots was discovered on a sidewalk on Saturday, just days before the California primary elections.
The ballots were discovered in East Hollywood, according to local news station KTTV, and the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office claimed the event was likely mail theft rather than a blatant attempt to commit election fraud.
According to the report, a woman discovered the box while walking her dog on Saturday. Christina Repaci told a news organization that she turned the corner and saw a box of envelopes in a USPS container. She picked up and examined several envelopes and saw they contained voting ballots.
Repaci attempted to call the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and various lawmakers after bringing them home for protection. She also used her social media accounts to distribute footage of the ballots.
Repaci stated that she called the sheriff’s department but could not get through, so she emailed them. She soon got an email back from the sheriff’s office telling her it wasn’t their responsibility and that she should call the U.S. Post Office.
According to the report, Dean Logan from the L.A. County Registrar’s Office contacted Christina Repaci about picking up the ballots. He then met with her to pick them up. Repaci said Logan took a photo of the container with the ballots and then handed her his contact card.
In a statement, the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office claimed security mechanisms are in place to guard against any abuse or criminality of mail-in votes and advised voters to report any potential voting process interruptions to the office immediately. The office re-issued new ballots to the impacted voters.
In her interview with local media, Christina Repaci explained that she couldn’t believe it was so difficult to ascertain what to do with the box of ballots. This is a free country, and our votes should matter. Something like this should never happen.
But it keeps happening.
