Fires set in drop boxes destroy hundreds of ballots in Washington and damage 3 in Oregon

Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — Authorities — including the FBI — are investigating after early morning fires were set in ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and in nearby Vancouver, Washington. Hundreds of ballots were destroyed in the Vancouver fire. In Portland, only three ballots were damaged after an incendiary device triggered a fire suppression system inside a drop box. The drop box that was targeted across the Columbia River in Vancouver also had a fire suppression system, but Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey says that for unknown reasons it failed work effectively. Vancouver is in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.