Incendiary devices have been set off at two ballot drop boxes — one in Portland, Oregon, and another in nearby Vancouver, Washington — in what one official called a “direct attack on democracy."
The ballot drop boxes in Washington and Oregon both have fire suppression systems that are designed to activate when the temperature inside reaches a certain point, coating ballots inside with a fire-suppressing powder.
For unknown reasons, the system failed to prevent the destruction of hundreds of ballots in Vancouver, just across the Columbia River from Portland.