Over 100 absentee ballots were found Thursday among undelivered crates of mail in a dumpster near Louisville, Kentucky, WDRB Media reported.
The Office of the Inspector General is investigating after a contractor renovating home found 112 absentee ballots, according to WDRB.
“We don’t need that for Louisville,” Nore Ghibaudy with the Jefferson County Board of Elections said, per the report. “We don’t need that for the Louisville post office folks and we don’t need that for the voters, either. It’s very discouraging.”
More than 100 absentee ballots intended for Louisville voters found discarded Thursday https://t.co/qZ6D5zJ9ug
— Courier Journal (@courierjournal) October 15, 2020
Special Agent Scott Balfour, from the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, said in a statement per WDRB that these types of incidents are “exceedingly rare” and most postal service workers are “hard-working, trustworthy individuals (that work) around the clock to deliver the nation’s mail.”
“The ballots and political flyers have already been returned to the USPS and will be delivered to customers today,” Balfour added. “USPS OIG Special Agents are working to identify who is responsible for discarding the mail. When the investigation is concluded, the case will be presented for federal prosecution to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
Absentee ballots in Kentucky will be counted if received by Nov. 6 and postmarked by Nov. 3.
The news comes amid reports of other absentee ballot dumping across the country. (RELATED: Three Trays Of Mail, Including Absentee Ballots, Found In Wisconsin Ditch
Three trays of undelivered mail, which included absentee ballots, were found Sept. 22 in a ditch by a highway near Greenville, Wisconsin, Daily Caller reported. A U.S. postal worker in New Jersey was arrested Oct. 7 for discarding mail that included 99 ballots, CBS reported. (RELATED: New Jersey Mail Carrier Arrested For Throwing Election Ballots Away)
President Donald Trump has also expressed election security concerns related to mail-in voting. When asked by NBC’s Savannah Guthrie in a nationally televised town hall Thursday evening whether he would accept a peaceful transition of power, Trump said he would and the election needs to be fair.
“When I see thousands of ballots, right, unsolicited ballots being given out by the millions, and thousands of them are dumped in dumpsters and when you see ballots with the name — Trump military ballots from our great military and they’re dumped in garbage cans,” he said.