Experts tout resilience of absentee voting infrastructure as officials respond to rare ballot box attack in Washington.
In a concerning incident just one week before Election Day, an arsonist targeted a ballot drop box in Vancouver, Washington, damaging hundreds of ballots.
While such attacks are rare, election officials across the country have been proactively preparing for such scenarios through comprehensive security measures.
According to experts, the infrastructure surrounding absentee voting has significantly improved over the past decade, with 24-hour surveillance, fire suppression systems, and advanced ballot tracking software.
These safeguards have allowed election officials to be better equipped to respond to potential threats.
“These are the types of scenarios that election officials are staying up at night thinking about and have been thinking about for years and as part of their contingency planning,” said Claire Woodall-Vogg, the former executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.
In the wake of this incident, election officials are encouraging voters to check the status of their absentee ballots through free, state-provided tracking services.
This allows voters to confirm if their ballot has been received and counted, or if they need to request a replacement.
The robust ballot tracking technology used by election offices across the country, such as the intelligent mail barcodes, provides a high level of transparency and accountability.
While the barcodes cannot reveal how a ballot has been filled out, they enable officials to closely monitor the journey of each ballot, from the moment it is mailed to the time it is received and counted.
Even in the rare event of a damaged ballot, election workers have procedures in place to “remake” the ballot, preserving the voter’s intent while ensuring it can be properly processed.
“We have a chain-of-custody system in place so that we know when we picked up the ballots and when we dropped them off, and all the ballots have barcodes on them so that they’re secure,” said George Dreckmann, a longtime poll worker in Milwaukee.
While the recent arson attack in Vancouver is concerning, experts emphasize that ballot drop boxes remain one of the most secure ways to cast a ballot.
With features like tamper-proof construction, 24-hour surveillance, and fire suppression systems, these drop boxes are designed to safeguard the integrity of the voting process.
As voters prepare to head to the polls, the resilience and preparedness of election officials should provide reassurance that their ballots will be protected, even in the face of rare and unfortunate incidents.