'A disgrace to democracy': Dozens of ballots destroyed in suspected arson of a Boston drop box
Source: Washington Post
The FBI and Boston police are searching for a suspect in the alleged arson of a ballot box Sunday morning in Boston. (Boston Police Department/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
The fire started early Sunday morning inside a ballot drop box in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. By the time firefighters doused the fire by filling the inside of the box with water, dozens of ballots inside had been destroyed.
Now, the FBI and Boston police are searching for a suspect in the alleged arson, an act that local authorities decried as an attack on democracy itself.
“What happened in the early hours of this morning to the ballot dropbox in Copley Square is a disgrace to democracy, a disrespect to the voters fulfilling their civic duty, and a crime,” said a joint statement from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh (D) and Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin (D).
The incident is at least the second alleged arson attack this month on ballot drop boxes, which have emerged as a popular option for the record numbers of Americans voting remotely to avoid polling places during the coronavirus pandemic. In Southern California last week, as many as 100 ballots were endangered when a drop box was set on fire.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/26/boston-ballot-dropbox-arson-election/
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Response to The Magistrate (Reply #1)
We are at the point were NO DROP BOX SHOULD BE ON AN OPEN STREET. They are playing fucking hard ball. These boxes need to be INSIDE a government facility where that will at least reduce the number of idiots trying to do a "walk-by arson" on them. This is going to happen more and more. Trying to twitter-notify people "after the fact" doesn't cut it.
Our elections officials TRULY need to prepare for "guerilla warfare-like" tactics and plan for the absolute WORST.
Here in Philly, we have "Satellite Elections Offices" and the "drop boxes" (which were actually tall rolling mail "bins" ) were inside the facility and there were elections staffers there at the door to confirm you had a ballot to drop off, after which you walked inside, they rolled the bin to you, and you put your ballot through the slot at the top of the bin.
The city has at least one "metal drop box" outside of City Hall and although that location is obviously monitored with cameras, etc., there's nothing stopping someone from vandalizing it. 
There can be a "balance" of security and access.
and here in Philly, they have specific schedule for hours when the "Satellite Elections Offices" are open -
The "outside" boxes (I just found out that there are a pile of them now) are 24/7 - https://www.phila.gov/voting/#/?services=Official%20mail-in%20ballot%20drop%20box
(but apparently "outside" of monitored facilities - all city facilities except Eastern State Penitentiary, which is sortof wild that one is there because it is a historic tourist site
)
Remember - these are "mail-in" ballots so they can be mailed too. Many don't feel they want to trust the mail so they prefer to submit them "in person". And this is not precluding voting "in person" on election day. We do NOT have "early 'in-person' voting" here in PA. It's merely "no-excuse absentee voting" (along with regular absentee voting) where people have the option to either put it in the mail OR drop it off.
if Market St. was detoured due to events at Independence Mall or parades/protests around there or if the Art Museum area was closed, I would go further north to Fairmount Ave. so I could come out at Kelly Drive to avoid the closures, and would drive past it.
My mother used to be a social worker, first for the state and then the city, and she was absolutely disgusted with it and would occasionally mention what went on it there (I think they finally closed it as an operational prison in the early '70s).
When they do those Halloween things in there, they would pull the big stone gargoyles out of storage and return them to the parapets -
It's a bizarre megalith in the middle of that neighborhood. In fact the whole neighborhood is almost unrecognizable now that they have gentrified it calling it the "Fairmount/Art Museum" area, so if anything, that drop box would be for the residents!
but they are heavy and the spots where they go are exposed and could make them unstable over time, with the risk of tumbling off.
http://americanpublichousereview.com/2009.10/eastern_state_penitentiary_philadelphia_pa/index.html
