Officials investigate possible voter interference in Los Angeles County ballots

Los Angeles County election officials said Sunday morning they found a small number of vote-by-mail ballots with fire damage inside an official drop box at the Department of Public Social Services-Civic Center in downtown Los Angeles, then uncovered a separate vandalism incident at the vote center at Cesar E. Chavez Park in Long Beach. The county said voting operations were not disrupted, but staff immediately began trying to identify whether any voters’ ballots had been affected and whether replacement ballots would be needed.

The Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office said police were notified, including the Los Angeles Police Department, and that election workers were working directly to reach any impacted voters. With hundreds of vote centers open across Los Angeles County for the June 2 California primary election, officials moved quickly to determine whether the damaged ballots could still be verified, replaced and counted without interrupting service for other voters.

County officials said the incidents were being investigated as possible attempts to interfere with the election. They stressed that tampering with ballots, election materials, voting equipment or election facilities is illegal and can bring criminal penalties. The county said it takes any incident involving election operations seriously and will report, refer and cooperate fully with law enforcement and other appropriate authorities when warranted.

The timing sharpened concerns because the discovery came just two days before Election Day in one of the nation’s largest voting jurisdictions. Los Angeles County has spent the past several years trying to reassure voters that damaged or suspicious ballots can be isolated, reviewed and replaced when necessary, a process meant to protect both ballot integrity and voter access. Officials said affected voters would be contacted directly and may be given replacement ballots if needed, a step intended to keep eligible votes from being lost to fire or vandalism.

The county’s caution also reflected a painful precedent. In October 2020, a ballot drop box outside the Baldwin Park Library in Los Angeles County was set on fire and investigated as arson, damaging ballots and prompting officials to move quickly to recover voter information and restore confidence in the system. That history has made even isolated incidents carry weight far beyond the number of ballots physically harmed, because each one can feed doubts about whether elections are secure, whether votes are safe once cast and whether public trust can withstand another attack on the process.