Florida Election Worker Fired After Ballots Fall Off Truck: What We Know

A sealed bin and bag with hundreds of Florida early voting ballots fell out of a Miami-Dade County truck on Monday night, according to the county’s elections department.

The incident occurred due to “human error,” when the driver did not lock the back of the truck ads they drove off, Miami-Dade elections officials said in a statement Tuesday. The employee has since been fired. Residents found the bin and bag of ballots and brought it to the police. Officials confirmed that “all items were accounted for.”

“The worker forgot to lock the back of the truck and as they drove off, one sealed bin and one sealed bag fell out, containing already voted ballots from early voting,” the Miami-Dade Elections Department wrote in a statement Tuesday. “While unintentional, the elections department has a zero tolerance for error and therefore the employee was terminated.”

The ballots were retrieved Monday night on a road near Florida’s Turnpike in Cutler Bay, according to a video posted by Only in Dade on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Last night, an individual came across a box full of ballots and other documents on exit 11 of the Turnpike, at the intersection of 211th St. in Cutler Bay,” the citizen journalism group posted. “He immediately picked them up and took them to the police station, where they have been properly secured.”

The video shows the driver approaching a blue box and bag that were strewn across the highway after going through a stoplight. He pulls over the side, picks them up and recognizes what the items are from the “official election materials” seal.

“How are those in the middle of the street?” the man asks in the video.

The man shows a photo of the police report made on October 28 at Miami-Dade Police Department’s Fourth District Station. The man said he was “not trying to get nobody in trouble.”

“I want to thank you for being so honest and doing a good community service,” a woman said at the police department in the video. “We really appreciate it.”

The Miami-Dade County Elections Department also thanked the “upstanding residents who did the right thing.”

Newsweek has reached out via email Tuesday afternoon to the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris presidential campaigns for comment.

This is not the first time this election cycle that issues around early voting ballots have occurred.

On Monday, police confirmed that a fire erupted inside a ballot drop box in Vancouver, Washington at the Fisher’s Landing Transit Center, destroying several boxes. Images shared online captured dark smoke billowing from a ballot box near Southeast 162nd Avenue shortly after 6 a.m.

The Clark County Auditor’s Office said that the drop box contained hundreds of ballots, the last of which were collected by election workers on Sunday morning.

Voters who submitted ballots after that time are urged to contact the Clark County Elections Office for guidance.

The Columbian reported that earlier this month, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to a separate incident involving a suspicious device found near a ballot drop box on Esther Street in downtown Vancouver.

Similarly, in Portland, an incendiary device was used to ignite a fire in a ballot drop box, according to police. According to police, the device was placed inside the ballot box to initiate the blaze, prompting a response from the bomb squad, which subsequently declared the area safe.

In another concerning incident last week in Phoenix, officials reported that a fire lit at a U.S. Postal Service station resulted in the destruction of approximately five ballots, with additional ballots suffering damage. This incident highlights ongoing vulnerabilities in ballot security as states continue to navigate the complexities of mail-in voting.

This is a developing news story that will be updated with more information.