Feds investigating hundreds of blank WA ballots found near Renton dumpster

Hundreds of Washington mail-in ballots were found next to a dumpster behind a Renton strip mall. Now the feds want answers.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service confirmed to KING 5 that it’s looking into the situation. The agency wouldn’t say much beyond that, keeping quiet on both the scope and timeline. The Washington State Standard reported that a postal inspector told Washington State Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh the FBI also wants in.

As of Monday, nobody from any agency has come to collect the ballots. Walsh still has them at the state party’s Bellevue headquarters.

Renton man finds box of ballots behind strip mall

Here’s how Walsh says it started: A man in Renton was tossing trash behind a strip mall back in mid-February when he bumped into a box he wasn’t expecting.

“He kind of knocked it with his leg … it was heavy, so he looked into it, it wasn’t sealed, opened it up, and it’s like ballots,” Walsh told KING 5.

Inside were somewhere between 360 and 500 ballots, depending on which outlet is counting. They cover Washington election cycles stretching from 2022 through 2025, with a big chunk from the 2024 general election. Most were addressed to King County voters, though some were headed to people in Snohomish and Pierce counties. The box was labeled “ballots + jury duty” and also held jury summons and voter registration materials.

Walsh said the ballots appear tied to a private mailbox rental business in Renton, the kind of place where individuals and small businesses lease mailing addresses. The current owner told KING 5 they took over in January and had no clue any ballots had been left behind, calling the whole thing “news to them.”

Finder says King County Elections, secretary of state didn’t respond

This is where the story gets tangled. Walsh posted on X that the man who discovered the box spent days trying to get someone to pay attention. He said the man reached out to King County Elections, the Washington Secretary of State’s office, and his congressional representative.

“He tried to contact King County elections … and got the runaround … and he said he tried contacting the state secretary of state,” Walsh told KING 5.

Nobody bit, Walsh said. So the man brought the ballots to him.

Both agencies tell a different story. Halei Watkins, communications manager for King County Elections, said there’s no record of anyone calling about it.

“If this person had spoken to anyone on our team, we would have absolutely asked them to bring the box to us so we could investigate,” Watkins told the Washington State Standard.

The Secretary of State’s office said the same: no reports by phone, email, website, or direct message on social media.

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs was blunt about Walsh’s decision to go public on social media first.

“If a person finds undelivered mail that has been improperly disposed of, there are several steps they should take to ensure it is fully investigated,” Hobbs said. “Posting a video on social media is not one of them.”

WA Republican Party chair says mail-in voting has a ‘broken chain of custody’

Walsh posted a video of the ballots spread across a table and hasn’t been shy about what he thinks they show about Washington’s vote-by-mail security. He’s been making the case on X that the system has a weak spot between election offices and voters’ mailboxes, and he’s framing this as an election integrity issue.

“We can’t be sure, really, of the path that any of these ballots took, and this gets to the real issue that this box of ballots illustrates,” Walsh wrote. “The broken chain of custody is the problem.”

In another post, he put it more directly: “These ballots, found next to a dumpster, are proof that WA’s vote-by-mail system is NOT secure. The ‘broken chain of custody’ between county election offices and voters needs to be fixed. Ballots need to be tracked more carefully. And more competently.”

Walsh told KING 5 he doesn’t think this proves fraud happened. But he told KOMO News it’s the kind of situation that could invite it.

“This is not a smoking gun that fraud occurred, but in this kind of situation, it’s an invitation to fraud,” he said. “A bad actor could get involved, could intercept them and do something illegal with them.”

His team is now going through the envelopes and checking voter information. Walsh said some envelopes were already torn or partially open when they arrived, and he looked at those to confirm they held actual ballots.

“We didn’t unseal anything that was sealed,” he told KING 5.

Washington election officials point to signature checks, ballot tracking

King County Elections wants people to know the system has built-in safeguards. When a voter sends back a ballot, election workers check the signature on the return envelope against what’s on file. If it doesn’t match, the office reaches out by mail, phone, and email. No matching signature, no counted ballot.

“Washington elections are safe and secure,” Hobbs told the Washington State Standard. “We check the signature on every ballot to determine that the ballot sent to a voter was signed and returned by that voter.”

If a ballot never arrives, voters can call King County Elections for a replacement or print one through the state’s VoteWA website. The office also encouraged voters to sign up for ballot tracking alerts, which send notifications when a ballot is mailed, received, and counted.

FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service now investigating Renton ballots

Walsh said he expects the ballots will eventually go to King County Elections, where most of them came from. According to KING TV, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said it knows about the situation and is coordinating with law enforcement, but it hasn’t received a formal criminal case referral. That step has to happen before any charging decision.

The Secretary of State’s office said Monday it’s working with King County Elections but didn’t have anything new to share.

The discovery has also given a boost to the state Republican Party’s push for Initiative IP26-500, a proposed measure that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in Washington. Walsh has backed the initiative and has also supported ending mail-in voting. IP26-500 doesn’t directly address ballot handling, but Walsh argues the Renton situation shows why keeping voter rolls accurate matters.

“We need to have someone responsible for a ballot at every stage of its delivery,” Walsh told KOMO News, “and right now we don’t.”

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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