Also dumped in Delridge: 9 ballots

Midi October 24, 2022 (9:43 pm)

My next door neighbor received my ballot, she was very kind and brought it over to me but weird coincidence

Dino October 24, 2022 (10:15 pm)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t those the signed and completed returned envelopes?

Patience October 25, 2022 (6:50 am)

Pictured are the front/back of the original envelopes that the ballots are sent to voters.
sam-c October 25, 2022 (7:00 am)

No, the signed and completed ballots are red. Just double-checked when I completed and dropped mine off this morning.
Waterscout October 25, 2022 (6:45 pm)

No, the return envelopes are orange and require you to sign on the back

1994 October 24, 2022 (10:27 pm)

Pre-Trump electoral fraud theories I found about 4 or 5 ballots in the ditch along Marine View Drive. I delivered them to the homes they were addressed to, about 1 mile away from where they were ditched along with other ‘junk mail’. That seemed the easiest thing to do – the addresses were all clumped together as were the mail boxes….no fraud, just a mail thief.

Frog October 24, 2022 (10:30 pm)

Hmmm … is there a black market in ballots? Or does someone think there is? Strange that someone would take the trouble to steal these, and then abandon them in bushes.

Save Our Country October 24, 2022 (10:56 pm)

Mail-in ballots are the biggest threat to democracy today. If you can’t get off your duff to vote, you don’t deserve to have your voice heard. Actual exceptions for people who genuinely can’t physically get to a voting booth not included, of course.

MyThruppence October 25, 2022 (12:02 am)

I contend that the added participation is proof that mail-in voting is actually great for democracy. If your concern is that those ballots could be cast illegally, I need to point out that without the voter’s signature those ballots are useless as ‘votes’. I’m curious if Save Our Country is even from WA, as a resident here would know that already.
- Eddie October 25, 2022 (5:18 am)
  
  Not just any signature either, a signature that is verified as belonging to the person allegedly signing it.
- WSResident October 25, 2022 (8:39 am)
  
  Signatures are checked against what they have on file. I know this because I have a sloppy signature and they have a few on file for me. If I sign my ballot and it does not match what they have on file I get a phone call from them. The system does work.
  - Ex-Westwood Resident October 25, 2022 (10:32 am)
    
    So, there is a forensic handwriting expert that exams EVERY signature with the one on file to ensure it has been signed by the actual person? Sure, blatant forgeries can be spotted, but what about close ones?
    
    The safest way to conduct voting is to have physical polling sites with trained people that will verify a person’s identity via a State issued ID.
    
    The ONLY people who should be voting by mail are those that have requested an Absentee Ballot via a MAILED in request form that will be verified before the ballot is sent out. Available only to the bed-ridden, deployed or stationed out of state military, as verified by the election’s office. This is the way it was done in the 80’s and early 90’s.
    
    Here is the $64,000,000 question; Why is it that Democrats, Progressives and Liberals are the ones that are adamantly OPPOSED to any type of Voter ID Law or ballot “harvesting” laws???
    - JK October 25, 2022 (11:38 am)
      
      So let’s hypothetically say we agree with your (completely disproven btw) theory that only in person voting can be safe and accurate. Would you then concede that in person voting locations should be (A) widely available over a long period of time (B) include at least one federal holiday and paid time off day for hourly workers (C) not physically restricted to your district for people who travel, students who live away from home, etc. (D) easy to register for and participate during the voting window and (E) Provide budget and means to support anyone who wants to vote but for any number of circumstances not covered above are unable to?If not – then you don’t care about safe and fair elections, you just care about the creating the narrow, biased conditions for “your tribe” to win.
    - WSResident October 25, 2022 (11:39 am)
      
      Yeah you’re right, we should have civilian armed militia at all voting stations to scare off anyone not voting mega or wearing Q attire.
    - Ex-Westwood Resident October 25, 2022 (3:32 pm)
      
      JK,
      (A) Yes, polling sites open for seven days is plenty of time.
      
      (B) Yes, but not all seven days. The ACTUAL day of the election (first Tuesday in Nov for example) should be a Federal AND State holiday.
      
      (C) NO. The polling places should be laid out by precinct. If not, then every polling site would have to have a list of ALL the registered voters in the county. It would be an unmanageable list. Students who are out of the area can and should request an absentee ballot. If in state, they can vote using a “provisional ballot” at a polling site that is verified by the election offices PRIOR to being counted OR request an absentee ballot. They weren’t that hard to request, I had to do so when I was deployed during elections.
      
      (D) NO Same day registration. Registration ends a minimum of four weeks before any election. If a person cared to vote, they would make sure they were registered in plenty of time to be able to vote.
      
      (E) That’s an impossible question to fully answer, but say a person is in an accident and in the hospital or is expectantly in the hospital due to an emergency, YES provisions should be made for them to vote.
      
      1) Here is one you did not hit, which I’m going to assume you REALLY don’t care about; the State WILL provide an ID to those that cannot afford one. In the event that a person is having difficulty in proving that they are a US Citizen, the State shall provide research assistance in to find out and verify their citizenship status.
      
      ONLY US Citizens should be allowed to vote in ANY election.
      
      WSResident – It wasn’t MAGA or Qanon people that were outside of polling places in cities that were armed in 2008…it was the New Black Panthers that were.
    - Jeff B October 25, 2022 (9:15 pm)
      
      It’s just as easy to put on a hat and walk into a polling station with someone else’s state ID as it is to pull of a believable forge of their signature, you clown. Let’s say someone does have the time to sit down and learn the exact signatures of every single person he was able to steal a ballot from (who didn’t notice and notify the election office); how many of those do you think they could realistically do? A dozen? Maybe two dozen if they were super dedicated to the cause? Certainly not enough to make any meaningful impact on the result. Take your nonsense somewhere else. If you prefer a less democratic country, perhaps Venezuela would be a better home for you.
aa October 25, 2022 (4:50 am)

Get off your duff to vote? It is my understanding that King County voting is all mail-in ballots, there are no voting booth locations for my duff to go to. Stating that mail-in ballots are the biggest threat to democracy is ridiculous.
- Greg October 25, 2022 (6:45 pm)
  
  There are 6 physical voting locations in King County. Check with King County Elections site for their locations.
  - WSB October 25, 2022 (7:01 pm)
    
    https://kingcounty.gov/depts/elections/how-to-vote/ballots/returning-my-ballot/vote-centers.aspx
Kt October 25, 2022 (5:05 am)

The greatest threat to democracy is actually the ex Potus who staged a failed coup.
- Kt for President October 25, 2022 (9:22 am)
  
  Well stated Kt and 100% true.
Frustrated October 25, 2022 (6:41 am)

This looks like an attempt to prevent people from voting, not an attempt to submit fraudulent ballots. Sorry, but you don’t get to decide whether or not your neighbors can vote.
Galts Gulch Resident October 25, 2022 (7:55 am)

Amen!
Mail It! October 25, 2022 (8:16 am)

Ridiculous claim!
MAGA talking point that has no viable basis. basis
shotinthefoot October 25, 2022 (9:08 am)

People who tend to vote republican really, really hate it when it is made easier for every American citizen to exercise their right to vote. Hmm, wonder why that is?
Sasquatch October 25, 2022 (11:21 am)

Proof?
miws October 25, 2022 (4:21 pm)

“Save” Our Country, Here’s what a true threat to our democracy looks like… https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/voting-rights-groups-turn-to-courts-to-fight-ballot-box-vigilantes-151442501879  —Mike
Doug October 25, 2022 (9:04 pm)

You are the threat to democracy. We as a country should get as many people to vote as possible. I vote by mail in Washington. Please provide cited sources that mail in ballets are compromised AND F—-NG COUNTED and I will void my response.Most fraudulent votes in the 2020 election where republicans that were caught. Can you provide cited sources that that was not the case?

William October 24, 2022 (11:09 pm)

I have been wondering where my ballot is! Is there a chance I can connect with Alfred? I am a resident of 25th Ave sw. Happy to provide proof of residence.

WSB October 24, 2022 (11:45 pm)

Hi, email us and we’ll forward your note to him. westseattleblog@gmail.com

Rhonda October 25, 2022 (1:48 am)

This is why 100% vote-by-mail is a terrible idea and in-person voting at polling places should be standard again in our State (with free-postage absentee ballots on request). ONLY election workers should be handling the vast majority of our ballots, not postal service employees. Lone drop boxes and isolated mailboxes are far too vulnerable to vandals and saboteurs.

Ivan Weiss October 25, 2022 (8:22 am)

@Rhonda: The usual nonsense from you. Mail-in voting boosts participation, which is healthy for our democracy. It’s here to stay in WA, whether reactionaries like it or not.
- WS Guy October 25, 2022 (10:12 am)
  
  Here’s a story about mail in voting that I think you will find credible.
  
  My aunt in Kent is married to a fundamentalist patriarchal husband. His view is that her role is to follow his orders. Including who to vote for. She confided in me that back when voting was done at a polling location, she would vote for whoever she wanted to but tell him that she voted as he wished.
  
  Now that it’s all done by mail, he watches her fill out and sign the ballot. Last time to be sure that she voted for Trump. Then he took the ballot and mailed it off with his own.
  - j October 25, 2022 (11:46 am)
    
    Clearly the right response here is making it harder for everyone in the state to vote, and definitely not to take any personal responsibility to help your aunt navigate an abusive relationship…….. btw you just described ACTUAL voter fraud.
  - Kristian Kicinski October 25, 2022 (5:25 pm)
    
    That sounds like voting fraud and a violation of your Aunt’s rights. If you are aware of a crime being committed you should report it, not post on internet blogs about it.
  - Lisa October 25, 2022 (5:29 pm)
    
    Your uncle’s behavior is illegal. Should we make it much harder for many, many people to vote in order to stop a few people from engaging in illegal voter harassment? Your aunt should vote using the online portal, perhaps from your house or a public library terminal, before filling out the paper ballot. The first ballot received is the one that will be counted. It’s true the state could come after her for trying to vote twice, but it’s not all that likely. They will probably just throw away the second ballot. If they do investigate, she can explain the situation with her horrible husband.
    - WS Guy October 26, 2022 (12:55 pm)
      
      Security and convenience work in opposite directions of each other. Personally I believe that we are on the wrong side of that right now and should be more secure. Everyone talks about “stolen elections” right now, most recently Hillary Clinton. Trust in our elections is too low and better security and voter verification is the answer.
  - Doug October 25, 2022 (9:15 pm)
    
    What a wonderful straw man argument. The tiny percentage that are negatively impacted negates the thousands that are positively impacted. I can not take a day off work to vote. I do not get that day off and can’t vote at a local polling place. But god forbid, that the one instance you provide negates all the progress that involved participation brings. We are a representative republic and we have minor democracy items from a state vote. If you want to restrict voting, you are a fascist that has no regard for democracy and only want certain ‘selected’ individuals to vote.
  - CAM October 26, 2022 (9:23 pm)
    
    WS Guy – Instead of being concerned about your aunt’s right to vote being lost here I’m going to express concern about her general health and well being and why we shouldn’t be focused on that and worry about her voting later? I am in fact hoping that the assumption made by others is accurate and your aunt does not really exist. If she does, please worry less about her husband stealing one vote (which btw can happen by coercion and abuse whether they are in the same room or not while voting, trauma has some remarkable effects) and more about protecting her long-term safety and autonomy.
    
    Oh, and please don’t use hypothetical depictions of women’s trauma to defend your efforts to disenfranchise your neighbors.
- Rhonda October 25, 2022 (2:57 pm)
  
  Please provide evidence that mail-in voting boosts participation. Countless voters toss their mail-in ballots into the garbage or simply refuse to vote every election. We just had 40% turnout in the Primary. Where do you think the other 60% of the ballots sent to EVERY resistered voter went? If you think 60% of voters throwing their ballots into the garbage or recycle bins is “participation”, well….
  - Ivan Weiss October 26, 2022 (6:14 am)
    
    @Rhonda: Even the most cursory examination of voter turnout statistics nationwide will reveal that Washington has consistently outstripped the national median for turnout since mail-in voting was instituted here.
    - Rhonda October 26, 2022 (3:15 pm)
      
      If you do a cursory examination of our own Secretary of State’s website you’ll see that voter turnout has remained statistically steady and in proportion to population for several decades:https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/research/general-election-turnout.aspx
reed October 25, 2022 (9:21 am)

Saboteurs = election denying insurrectionist Trump supporters.

Terri October 25, 2022 (3:44 am)

The threat of voter suppression is real, even here. Thanks to Alfred for being alert and taking action.

Watertowerjim October 25, 2022 (5:30 am)

I guess we just need to trust our mailman. They know our magazine subscriptions and a lot more about every household based on what they deliver. What’s to stop them from not delivering to a household they know doesn’t fit their political views? Say, someone who gets NRA magazine as an example? Throw them out along your route. Hard to prove. The world has gone mad over the last three years. No one is immune or completely trustworthy anymore. Sad.

Derek October 25, 2022 (7:49 am)

You can verify your ballot online. If you’re concerned about rogue mailmen you can use a ballot drop box then verify your votes online. Washington is way ahead of this concern.
WS Resident October 25, 2022 (7:55 am)

Okay so A) if you don’t get your ballot you can request a new one or even just print it off online and B) by this logic what’s to stop mailmen from stealing your packages or committing other kinds of mail crime? We trust our mailmen with other aspects of our lives every day- important bills, notifications, expensive packages, medications, etc.
Mail It October 25, 2022 (8:24 am)

What a remarkable and paranoid slur of postal employees!
Minuscule risk to our voting results.
As others are writing, we have backups upon backups to provide integrity of our ballots.

MyThruppence October 25, 2022 (7:54 am)

To help those painfully honest souls among us understand, a regular old mail thief (looking for birthday cards with cash, etc. ) would almost certainly grab all of the mail out of many mailboxes at the same time, leave the immediate area, then sort through and discard the mail that is of zero use to them. The ballots would be among the discarded items, on the ground, a block or two away, as was the case here.

Oakley34 October 25, 2022 (9:02 am)

Thank you for the common sense. This is the most likely explanation…mail theft is not at all uncommon in WS.
Jethro Marx October 25, 2022 (9:30 am)

Don’t be crazy- this is obviously part of a scheme to bring in fentanyl M&Ms on muleback and trade them for bamboo ballots to help China steal our founding fathers. Duh. Do you even Breitbart, Bro?

Buddy October 25, 2022 (8:30 am)

People calm down it’s called mail theft which has been occurring constantly in this community and near by communities! It’s just someone who took a bunch of mail and has issues and just put all voters envelopes in one spot. In my neighborhood mail theft is constant and some morning there’s a trail of mail up and down the street like bread crumbs. If you find stolen mail put in in the mailbox or give it to your friendly mail person so that they can redeliver it. you can also go on line and fill out mail stolen information to local police and post office, of course not much will be done but at least you are doing something.

Rick October 26, 2022 (4:19 pm)

It’s odd when the abandoned mail is only ballots.

WS Guy October 25, 2022 (9:58 am)

The reason for the concern is the lack of chain-of-custody with mail-in ballots. They can be lost, altered, or discarded/destroyed. While it’s possible for the voter to sign in online and verify the vote was counted, it’s not common.

Also, there are a lot of protections offered to a voter who is at a secure and private polling location that cannot be extended to a voter who is outside of that. A voter can be pressured, supervised, coached, and bribed and ultimately harvested.

Enid October 25, 2022 (12:07 pm)

Yes, and Republicans are working hard to make sure that exactly this type of intimidation occurs at polling stations nationwide. The ones, that is, that are allowed to remain open and/or staffed in black neighborhoods or Democratic districts, already compromised due to expanded gerrymandering allowed under Trump-stacked courts.
Mail It October 25, 2022 (12:16 pm)

Pure speculative paranoia. We do have a secure private polling locations, your ballot drop box.
MyThruppence October 25, 2022 (12:44 pm)

Any properly registered voter can cast their ballot at the elections office if they so desire.

Amanda October 25, 2022 (10:17 am)

I think my ballot is one of the dumped ones. I called for a replacement ballot and it was super easy. The phone was answered by a human who verified my info. I got instructions on what to expect. Great customer service. I feel she did a great job.

Corey October 26, 2022 (7:12 am)

I suspect my and my mother’s ballots are also among those stolen on Friday. I also called the county and they cancelled those ballots and are sending new ones. It was very easy and built my confidence that they have this noted and will make sure my vote – and not someone else who took a ballot – is the one counted. I also had other mail taken…perhaps collateral damage… I only learned what I was missing by checking the scanned images on the USPS mail service where they email me with images of the mail coming each day. I highly recommend this service!

Cindi B October 25, 2022 (10:18 am)

We live near 37th & Morgan and get post office Informed Delivery notifications. We were supposed to get our ballots last Friday. They still haven’t arrived as of Tuesday morning. We have a locking mailbox so they weren’t stolen. I’m headed down to the Post Office to ask about them later today. However, with time running short, we went ahead and ordered replacement ballots, thanks so much for posting the number to call to get that process started.

Lola October 25, 2022 (3:52 pm)

Buddy,I can tell you that the freindly mail person does not deliver the mail when I hand it to them. I keep getting the same ladies mail and I text her to tell her that I handed it to the mail person and she never got it. It works better when I go up and put it back in the mail box;

Colonel Mustard's Wrench October 25, 2022 (6:49 pm)

I kept waiting for Save Our Country, Ex-Westwood Resident, Rhonda, Watertower Jim, and WS Guy to blame the mail theft on a group of Antifa coming up from Portland.

If your mailbox is accessible to random people, I recommend that you replace it with a Post Office-approved lockable mailbox, and prevent the recurring mail theft.

The majority of us appreciate receiving our ballots in the mail.
I can think of too many times in the past that I walked into the voting booth – only to be blindsided by something on the ballot that I didn’t even know would be there.
Thankfully, those days are long gone.

These days, the only surprise is the ongoing violence and venom from the lemmings that are following Trump.