Police have arrested a man in connection with the Arizona arson, and believe the Oregon and Washington attacks are linked.
Over the past week, two ballot drop boxes and one USPS mailbox have been torched in three separate incidents in Arizona, Oregon and Washington.
Early on October 28, arson attacks targeted two ballot drop boxes situated in Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. This followed an incident on October 24 when a free-standing mailbox at a U.S. Postal Office in Phoenix, Arizona, was set on fire.
The attacks come at a time of heightened tensions ahead of the 2024 presidential election on November 5 and follow on from the contested 2020 presidential poll.
Donald Trump is continuing to insist the 2020 contest was rigged against him, though this has been repeatedly dismissed in the courts and by independent election experts.
Over the past few months, Trump has targeted mail-in voting in particular with unsubstantiated allegations of vote rigging, branding it « corrupt » during events in Michigan and Pennsylvania. However, Trump’s team has also encouraged his supporters to vote early, and earlier this month called for some restrictions on early voting and absentee ballots to be lifted in areas of North Carolina badly hit by Hurricane Helene.
Newsweek has provided a summary of the attacks below along with a map showing their locations, with the Washington and Oregon incidents appearing as one circle due to their close proximity.Pheonix, Arizona
The Phoenix Police Department said it was called shortly after 1:00 a.
