Following an arson attack ahead of last November’s election that torched hundreds of ballots in a southwest Washington drop box, state lawmakers are looking at modest ways to better secure the boxes.
On Friday, a state Senate panel advanced a bill to include messaging on drop boxes about criminal penalties for tampering with them.
Senate Bill 5011 would require each visible side of ballot boxes to display two messages. One would note the box is the property of the county that bought the box. The other would state tampering with the box may violate state and federal law.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, said the deliberately set fire in Vancouver before the election inspired the legislation.
“What is contained in those boxes is the most precious thing I can certainly think of, which is everybody’s vote,” Wilson told the Senate’s State Government, Tribal Affairs and Elections Committee last week. “That individual’s vote is to be protected and guarded.”
Some wonder whether signage alone would deter bad actors.
Wilson thinks it could help. “The label does matter,” he said.
Authorities still haven’t arrested anyone in the October attacks on ballot drop boxes in Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the ballot box fires.
Early the morning of Oct. 8, someone in a Volvo S-60 sedan placed an incendiary device in a downtown Vancouver ballot box, causing minor damage, according to the FBI. On Oct. 28, officials believe the same suspect placed similar devices in two more boxes, one in Vancouver and one in Portland.
The Vancouver fire damaged nearly 500 ballots just days before the election. The fire in Portland damaged only three.
The devices used thermite, a mixture of metal shavings and iron oxide, authorities said last week.
Brian Hatfield, the legislative director for the secretary of state’s office, called the actions “terrorism.” Hatfield, a former state lawmaker, said the bill “is at least talking about the issue and saying we need to do something.”
Washington has between 545 and 560 drop boxes. Officials project the new labeling proposed under Wilson’s bill would cost about $1,000 for each box.
But the cost could vary by county. For example, Kittitas County paid $222 to wrap each of its nine boxes, while King County estimates it will cost $1,350 per box.
Hatfield said he hoped the state would budget money to reimburse counties for the labels.
Greg Kimsey, the auditor in Clark County where Vancouver is located, said in an interview Friday he doesn’t see the harm in adding the labels.
But “I’m also not sure it does much in the way of deterring someone from bad behavior,” he added.
Another measure Wilson has proposed, Senate Bill 5010, would create a grant program in the secretary of state’s office for counties to install cameras around ballot boxes. That bill hasn’t been scheduled for a public hearing.
Kimsey said Clark County is already working to install cameras at each of its drop boxes by this year’s general election. The fires last October spurred the effort.
