USPS Mailbox Fire In Arizona’s Maricopa County Damages Some Ballots

A United States Postal Service mail collection box was set on fire early Thursday in Arizona’s Maricopa County, damaging what officials say were about 20 electoral ballots inside the box.

Phoenix Fire Capt. Rob McDade told local media that an individual lit the fire overnight inside the blue drive-up collection mailbox, which reporters at the scene described as burnt and damaged. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes confirmed the damaged ballots Thursday on a call HuffPost participated in.

The Phoenix Fire Department’s Arson Investigation Taskforce is conducting an ongoing criminal investigation with postal inspectors and police, and has obtained surveillance footage of the area. Law enforcement arrested a suspect but has not yet confirmed the individual’s identity or motive, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said late Thursday morning.

“There is zero tolerance for criminal activity in our community, and we are working collaboratively with every level of government to bring the perpetrator to justice,” she said in a statement, adding that she is in regular communication with both Fontes and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.

Fontes said his office has ensured that election drop boxes across Arizona’s counties contain fire suppression equipment. But the mailbox in question belongs to the USPS, which does not have that same protection.

“This does not happen often and is rare. I encourage everyone not to place any mail in blue collection boxes after the last pick up time, as stated on the box,” Liz Davis, a postal inspector and spokesperson for the USPS Phoenix division, said in a statement obtained by KTVK-3TV.

Arizona has set up online ballot tracking, so voters like those impacted by the Thursday blaze can check if their ballots don’t reach election offices. According to Richer, voters who used that specific USPS mailbox in the last 36 hours should check the status of their ballot on the website, which he said will usually mark a successful delivery within 72 hours.

Voters whose mail ballots were damaged can request a replacement ballot in the mail, though Friday is the last day to make that request for the state’s Nov. 5 election. Fontes, who was also the former county recorder, said that affected voters will be contacted to ensure they can still cast their vote.

“Any attack that strikes at our democratic process carries criminal consequences,” he said in a statement. “Ballot abuse is a felony in Arizona, and mailbox vandalism is a federal crime.”

Maricopa County gained national attention in 2020 when Republicans accused election officials of conducting fraud because processing every vote ― especially those in Arizona’s largest county ― would not be complete by the end of Election Day, as is normally the case across the country. Former President Donald Trump and his allies said that such a process is why he lost the historically right-leaning swing state to President Joe Biden by fewer than 11,000 votes.

The accusations resulted in ballot recounts, frivolous lawsuits, right-wing conspiracies about the voting process and multiple election denying candidates who have yet to concede races from 2020 and 2022. Trump supporters, some armed, protested outside Maricopa County’s election office in the days following the 2020 election demanding officials count votes faster.

“The biggest problem is the elected officials and candidates who are still lying about elections. They still are lying to their fellow citizens, and they’re lying in a way that helps to erode the civic faith that we all have in one another as Americans,” Fontes told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Oct. 19. “That’s the biggest problem, everything else stems from that.”

Richer counted about 630,228 returned ballots as of Thursday morning ― 264,356 of them cast by Republican voters and 224,122 cast by Democratic voters. The Republican recorder has tried to sift through the election disinformation, facing threats to his safety from people who believe Trump’s fraud claims.

A judge ordered a group of masked and armed so-called “observers” to stay a certain distance away from Arizona ballot drop boxes in 2022, following reports that those individuals were intimidating people trying to vote by mail. In addition to the newly fireproofed drop boxes, authorities have upped election security by fortifying offices with wiring and bullet-proof windows.

“This specific type of election interference has been discussed for weeks on Trump’s Truth Social,” wrote Devin Burghart, executive director for the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights.

Burghart then attached a screenshot by an apparent Truth Social user who suggested lighting fire to election drop boxes in politically blue cities. The user in the screenshot wrote: “Doesn’t matter who voted, none of those count.”