Ross: Do you know who empties your ballot box?
Oct 12, 2020, 6:10 AM | Updated: 10:12 am
Voters arrive to cast their ballots during primary elections on March 10, 2020, in Seattle. Although most Washington State ballots are mailed-in, many people deposit their votes in ballot drop boxes located throughout the state. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
In Washington state, where we’ve voted by mail for years, the ballot drop boxes are built like tanks, bolted to the ground, authorized and emptied by each county.
In California, however, things seem to be a little looser:
“The first thing we should show you is that the box is no longer where it appeared to be a few days ago in that lighted entrance.”
KCAL9 TV reported that the pastor of Freedoms Way Baptist Church put up his own ballot box and posted a picture of it on the church’s Facebook page:
“You see a gray metal container with a taped sign, which says “official ballot drop box,” and the pastor, Jerry Cook, wrote underneath, ‘Our church has a voting drop box in front of our complex. If you are voting early, drop your ballot on by.'”
Under California law, if you can’t get your signed and sealed ballot to a mail box or drop box you CAN designate another person to do it for you … as long as that person isn’t being paid. And that appears to have spawned privately-run drop-off locations.
And in the case of one county, Fresno County, I found a list of ballot collection locations posted by a local political party and NONE of the addresses matched the locations of the official county drop boxes.
Which I’m sure they wouldn’t do if it wasn’t legal – but considering all the debate about vote fraud, it strikes me as very weird.
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