After Ballot Box Fires Elsewhere, Bay Area Elections Officials Urge Trust in the Vote

After three ballot boxes were set on fire in the Pacific Northwest in recent weeks, raising concerns about voting safety, local elections officials are seeking to reassure voters that they can trust the protections in place.

In the Bay Area, registrars have enhanced security measures to ensure that, even in this tense time, voters and poll workers can participate in a safe and fair election cycle.

Several officials said they anticipated increased risks ahead of this election, which could be the result of the last four years of stoked fears around voting — including former President Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance’s refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, and the 2021 insurrection on the day Congress certified its result.

“We’ve become increasingly aware of the security risks to the voting process,” said Matt Moreles, Santa Clara County’s acting registrar of voters. “We’ve been taking steps going into this year and into this election to try to strengthen the security so that we can provide all of our voters with a safe and secure election process that’s free from any interference and intimidation.”

In Santa Clara, that included adding security to high-turnout polling places and increasing collaboration with local law enforcement to develop escalation and incident response plans.

“If anything happens, we have direct lines out to all of our partners,” he said. “We’ve got plans for how to respond so that we can ensure continuity.”

Ballot drop boxes are a particular area of concern for voters after the recent fires. On Oct. 8, the first was lit in Vancouver, Washington. On Monday, another fire was set at one of the city’s ballot drop-off locations, as well as at another in Portland, Oregon.

Authorities believe the incidents are related. The New York Times has reported that at all three sites, devices placed outside the drop boxes had “Free Gaza” written on them, though investigators are trying to determine whether the suspect was a pro-Palestinian activist or using the phrase to sow division.

According to a September bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security, obtained by the watchdog group Property of the People, plans to destroy ballot drop boxes had been swirling on social media for about six months.

“Some social media users are discussing and encouraging various methods of sabotaging ballot drop boxes and avoiding detection, likely heightening the potential for targeting of this election infrastructure through the 2024 election cycle,” it reads.

The bulletin specifically said that people on forums frequented by “domestic violence extremists” discussed methods to destroy the boxes with petroleum fuel, road flares and fireworks.

“We knew going into this election that drop boxes were going to be an area of concern for security,” Moreles said.

California requires local elections officials to pick up ballots from boxes every other day in the 10 days before the election, but Santa Clara County has increased the frequency of pickups at its 109 drop-off locations to every day, and as Nov. 5 gets closer, Moreles said they will be picking up three to four times a day.

Elections workers have been instructed to inspect the boxes on pickup runs to make sure nothing has been tampered with and that all of their seals are in place, and local law enforcement agencies have been asked to increase patrols near the boxes when possible.

Lynda Roberts, Marin County’s chief election officer, said that the county is installing fire suppression equipment to its 26 drop box locations. It is also increasing patrols in the areas, and is closing ballot boxes at polling places overnight, though they have traditionally been accessible 24 hours a day.

The 14 drop boxes that are still open at all times are all in the vicinity of government and law enforcement agencies’ buildings.

Many Bay Area counties plan to activate their emergency operation centers to centralize communication with voting locations and law enforcement officials, Roberts said.

While Kristin Connelly, Contra Costa County’s registrar of voters, said she couldn’t comment on specifics, she said that the elections office had been in communication with local law enforcement and was doing “everything we can to keep a safe and secure election.”

Many registrars are telling voters to sign up for ballot tracking so that they can see when their ballot has been received.

“The best thing that voters can do is to sign up for ballot tracks,” Roberts said. “It’s a free ballot tracking service through the Secretary of State that will tell the voter when we’ve received their ballot… Then they can have that assurance.”

Most counties in the Bay Area have details about their work to ensure a safe election, along with information on deadlines for mail-in ballots and the link to ballot tracking on their websites.

Moreles said that one of the best ways to ensure your ballot arrives safely is to vote early and track its progress. Santa Clara County, which has a little over a million registered voters, has already received 275,000 ballots. If your ballot hasn’t arrived after two to three days, he said it might be time to reach out to your elections office to see about a replacement or go to an in-person vote center.

According to all three of the officials, their counties are in good positions to have safe and secure elections next week.

“We’ve been working tirelessly with all of our local, state and even federal partners to make sure that we have good plans in place to ensure a secure election,” Moreles said.