Mail thieves get ahold of election ballots in the South Bay
Mail thieves got ahold of election ballots in the South Bay early Monday morning, prompting a warning from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Damian Trujillo reports.
Mail thieves got ahold of election ballots in the South Bay early Monday morning, prompting a warning from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Vote counting continues at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters’ office in San Jose, but NBC Bay Area learned that more than two dozen ballots were brought in by postal inspectors after thieves got to them.
WATCH HEREAccording to the Postal Inspection Service, the unopened ballots were delivered directly to the Registrar of Voters after being recovered from bins of stolen mail.
“It was about 29 ballots,” said Matt Moreles of the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. “They were all sealed inside their return envelopes. So we were able to signature check them and verified they were valid and then we did count them.”
Postal inspectors said the ballots were found outside a Grocery Outlet store in Morgan Hill, where police discovered multiple bins of stolen mail, including the sealed ballots.
“Mail thieves are looking for financial instruments that they can get out of the mail,” inspector Matthew Norfleet said. “And sometimes they pick up some election mail. There was no reason to think the election-related mail was targeted. If anything it was left behind.”
Norfleet said it remains unclear where in Santa Clara County the mail was stolen. Investigators believe it could have been taken from a blue collection box or a community mailbox often found at apartment complexes.
Local
The Postal Inspection Service is urging residents across the county to check with banks, businesses and loved ones for any mail that should have been delivered between Sunday night and Monday morning.
For voters who want to make sure their ballots are counted, Moreles encouraged them to use the county’s ballot tracking tools.
“You can log onto our website, sccvote.org, and we have a look-up tool there,” Moreles said. “We also have a service that we go through, through the state, called Where’s-My-Ballot where you can sign up for text alerts or email alerts, so that as soon as we check in your ballot, you get notified as well.”
The Postal Inspection Service is continuing to search for the thieves. Investigators recommend that residents avoid leaving outgoing mail in blue collection boxes or other drop-off locations overnight to reduce the risk of theft.