Why election officials are pushing voters to ‘use the drop box rather than the mailbox’

If someone tries to firebomb a ballot drop box again in Clark County, Washington, election officials will know about it immediately.

That’s because after about 500 ballots were damaged in 2024 by an assailant who set fire to drop boxes with an explosive device containing thermite, the county upgraded its drop boxes. They now include technology that sends a text message to officials if the temperature inside the box rises above a certain temperature, if the box receives a forceful blow or if it’s removed from its geo-fenced location, Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey told CNN.

Clark County also purchased upgraded fire suppressant devices to prevent the destruction of ballots in a fire, Kimsey added, and it’s installing surveillance cameras at all of its drop box locations, though cameras were in place where boxes were attacked in 2024.

“I’m really pleased that even just immediately following that horrible incident, voters continued to use ballot drop boxes,” Kimsey said. “We think we’ve taken the appropriate steps to ensure the safety of the ballots in the ballot drop boxes. We’ve been retrieving ballots on a little more frequent schedule than we have in the past.”

Drop boxes are available in most states as a way for voters to conveniently return their ballots ahead of Election Day. In the aftermath of the 2020 election and President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, however, they became a source of baseless conspiracy theories about ballot stuffing and a target for attacks.

In the years since, both Republican and Democratic officials have taken a hard look at ballot drop boxes — but through sharply different lenses.

Some counties have invested millions of dollars into fortifying them and making them more high tech. Many Democratic leaders have pushed to expand their use, and states like Oregon and Pennsylvania are adding drop boxes to reach more voters.

Many Republican officials, meanwhile, have pushed to restrict or even ban drop boxes, arguing they need tighter surveillance and stricter chain-of-custody rules. They contend the boxes can enable unauthorized ballot collection — what some call “ballot harvesting” — and that safeguards vary too widely from county to county.

But election officials who advocate for drop boxes say they’re a more important tool than ever to ensure all ballots get returned on time. Even though the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to significantly restrict mail voting, election officials are warning that a change to the way the US Postal Service processes and postmarks the mail risks ballots arriving too late.

To cut costs in recent years, the Postal Service has reduced trips between thousands of local post offices and processing centers, which means some mail may sit longer before being postmarked. In states that use postmarks to determine whether late-arriving ballots count, that delay could put otherwise valid votes in jeopardy.

In Washington state, Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell and Secretary of State Steve Hobbs released a report finding mail ballots rejected for arriving late increased 32% in the state’s August 2026 primary compared with the 2024 primary. In two of the state’s counties, the number of rejected late ballots spiked more than 300%.

A Brookings study of primary ballots in three states this year — California, Washington and North Carolina, which all release public data on the reasons mail ballots are rejected — found that the rejection rate for late-arriving ballots roughly doubled in areas affected by the USPS processing changes.

“We’re really emphasizing to our voters that they use the drop box rather than the mailbox. And if they are going to use the mailbox, just mail it early,” Hobbs told CNN. “If you’re 10 days from the election, that’s the danger area where your ballot may or not make it.”

The US Postal Service insists that ballots should arrive on time if voters mail them back at least a week before Election Day.

USPS says it delivered 97.94% of election mail “with an on-time score” during this year’s primaries. In the 2024 general election, USPS says it delivered 99.6% of ballots within three days.

“As we move closer to the election, we will implement procedures consistent with past Federal election cycles to ensure completed ballots are expedited to election offices,” a USPS spokesperson told CNN, referring to the “extraordinary measures” it uses during elections to speed up ballot delivery.

Drop boxes have been frequent objects of suspicion for Trump and other 2020 election deniers. Trump himself has called for states to ban them.

The widely debunked film “2000 Mules” alleged that drop boxes were used for widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election through so-called mules stuffing them with ballots. The film’s creator admitted in 2024 that some of the claims were flawed.

But that hasn’t stopped conspiracies surrounding drop boxes from percolating — and from a backlash toward the boxes among red-state legislators.

Drop boxes are banned or not used in more than 10 states, including 2026 battlegrounds Texas and North Carolina, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Voters in states without drop boxes still typically can drop off ballots at an election office during business hours.

Sixteen states passed laws since 2021 to ban or restrict drop boxes in some ways, including eight that outlawed them, according to Voting Rights Lab, which tracks state election laws. Other states have limited where they can be deployed or how many can be used, such as in Ohio, which allows only one drop box per county.

In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court blocked drop boxes for the 2022 election when it was controlled by Republicans. Then in 2024, after the makeup of the court shifted back toward Democrats, the state changed course and allowed them. The state leaves the decision to use drop boxes up to each locality running elections.

“What we have in many situations is oddly a blue-red division whether or not a community has drop boxes,” said Ann Jacobs, a Democratic commissioner on the Wisconsin Elections Commission. “Many of the red communities, thinking they’re still somehow illegal and not proper, are not having them available to their voters. Oddly, that makes absentee voting harder for their voters because they can’t just turn them in.”

In deep-red Wyoming, however, the Republican-controlled Legislature has balked at banning ballot drop boxes outright.

Last year, at Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s urging, the state House overwhelmingly approved a full ban. But it died in the state Senate, where lawmakers favored a compromise: requiring new, more secure receptacles built into government buildings such as courthouses.

“We just couldn’t get past that disagreement,” Wyoming state Sen. Brian Boner told CNN, adding that lawmakers are still discussing a path forward.

Boner, a Republican, said he supports eliminating stand-alone drop boxes for security reasons, but he represents a rural, working-class district where many constituents rely on early voting, since Wyoming law grants workers just one hour off to vote on Election Day.

“Frankly, in rural Wyoming, that’s just not enough time to even do the round trip into town and back,” he said. “We have lots of coal miners, oil and gas field workers, and ranchers who maybe that’s their only opportunity — when they come in, perhaps after business hours, to vote early if that’s what they want to do.”

Since the false claims of a “rigged” 2020 election, drop boxes have been a target of both suspicion and physical attacks.

In 2022, following the release of “2000 Mules,” masked men with telescopic camera lenses stalked voters outside drop boxes, prompting voter intimidation referrals from the Arizona secretary of state to the Justice Department .

Ahead of this year’s June California primary, ballots were burned at a drop box in Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles County’s Registrar-Recorder.

And in 2024, three ballot boxes were bombed in Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, incidents the FBI connected to the same assailant, but a suspect was never arrested. In Portland, where the boxes had better fire suppressant technology, only three ballots out of 400 inside were damaged.

Courtesy Greg Kimsey

“It’s one of those nightmare scenarios. You don’t really plan for it,” Hobbs said. “Thermite was used, which you can’t just pick up anywhere. You can’t just put it out with water or your standard fire extinguisher. You need a special chemical that takes oxygen out of the air. The drop box in Washington did not have that.”

Election officials across the country are turning to more advanced technology, both for protection and ballot tracking.

Clark County’s boxes, for instance, now have more advanced fire suppression, part of a broader push to retrofit existing boxes with sensors that detect heat or smoke and automatically deploy safeguards to protect the ballots.

Counties in Pennsylvania, Illinois and California have spent millions of dollars on a new generation of high-tech drop boxes that aim to combine tamper-resistant design and fire protection with a digital audit trail. The boxes photograph each person who makes a deposit, scan the ballot-return envelope to initiate chain-of-custody tracking, and create a detailed record for election officials.

“There’s a range of drop boxes: There’s the really, really good ones with fire suppression, then ones that are pretty good, then there’s crummy ones which look like you bought at Home Depot or something,” said Scott McDonell, clerk of Dane County, Wisconsin. “So, I tell the clerks, if you’ve got a Home Depot one, don’t do it. Get the money to get a decent drop box.”

It’s long been the guidance from both election officials and the US Postal Service for voters to return ballots through the mail at least one week before the election to be safe.

Some election officials in Wisconsin are now urging voters to mail them at least 14 days before Election Day.

“Ballots are taking this trip across the state, so they’re driving hours upon hours for no good reason,” Jacobs said.

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said there’s now one facility that processes postmarks for nearly all mail in the state. Local mail from the southwest corner of the state now make a 500-mile roundtrip to Portland to be postmarked.

“We don’t want people to count on what used to be the case for when a piece of mail is postmarked,” he said.

The US Postal Service has spent the past several years overhauling how mail moves across the country to cut costs. It has shifted more mail from air to ground, extended expected delivery times for First-Class Mail and consolidated processing at regional hubs. More recently, USPS has reduced trips between thousands of local post offices and processing centers — meaning some mail may sit longer before it is postmarked.

While the agency insists it is improving efficiency, USPS has missed most of its recent service targets, according to a September report from the US Government Accountability Office. Its cost-cutting measures “have slowed service for some mail and had a disproportionate impact on rural customers,” the report said.

Those delays can be critical for mailed ballots, which face strict legal deadlines. Even a one-day delay can put a ballot mailed close to Election Day at risk. And because machine postmarks generally show when mail is processed — not necessarily when USPS receives it — a ballot mailed on time could receive a later postmark. However, voters can request a manual postmark at a Post Office, the USPS spokesperson said.

Starting October 24, USPS plans to implement “extraordinary measures,” as it has in past elections, to speed up ballot delivery with extra pickups, Sunday processing and expedited handling. In some cases, workers will pull ballots from the regular mail stream, postmark them by hand and deliver them directly to election offices.

Roughly 15 states allow ballots that arrive after Election Day to be counted, provided they were postmarked on time — grace periods the Supreme Court left intact this year. In other states, ballots must reach election officials before the polls close, leaving less of a buffer for voter procrastination or mail delays.

“We try very hard to work with folks to know that Arizona is not a postmark state, we’re an in-hand state,” said Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. “We want folks to just make it clear they’ve got options to return it in person if they don’t want to return it by mail.”

Fontes said his state is encouraging voters to track their ballot online and sign up for text alerts so they know when it’s delivered — a tool now offered in a growing number of states.

In states where drop boxes aren’t allowed, voters also often have alternatives to return mail ballots, like in Indiana, where they can deliver them to an early voting center.

Kate Sweeney Bell, the clerk in Marion County, Indiana, said she’s heard more from voters this cycle who are fearful of using the mail to vote.

“They think that something hinky is happening at the United States Postal Service, and instead of mailing them, they want to know whether they can put them in a drop box,” said Sweeney Bell, a Democrat. “And I have to tell them, ‘No, we don’t have that, but here are your options.’”

如果有人再次试图在华盛顿州克拉克县纵火焚烧选票投放箱，选举官员将立即知晓。

这是因为在2024年，一名袭击者用含有铝热剂的爆炸装置纵火焚烧投票箱，导致约500张选票受损后，克拉克县升级了投票箱。克拉克县审计员格雷格·金西告诉CNN，现在的投票箱配备了新技术，如果箱内温度超过设定值、受到强力撞击或被移出预设的地理围栏区域，系统会自动向官员发送短信。

金西补充说，克拉克县还购买了升级的灭火装置，以防止选票在火灾中被毁，并且正在所有投票箱地点安装监控摄像头，尽管在 2024 年投票箱遭到袭击的地方已经安装了摄像头。

“我非常高兴，即使在那起可怕的事件发生后，选民们仍然继续使用投票箱，”金西说。“我们认为我们已经采取了适当措施，确保投票箱内选票的安全。我们收取选票的频率也比以往更高了。”

大多数州都设有投票箱，方便选民在选举日之前递交选票。然而，在2020年大选之后，以及唐纳德·特朗普总统关于选民舞弊的虚假指控之后，投票箱却成了毫无根据的阴谋论的温床，这些阴谋论声称存在舞弊行为，投票箱也因此成为攻击目标。

此后的几年里，共和党和民主党官员都认真审视了选票投放箱问题——但他们的审视角度截然不同。

一些县已投入数百万美元用于加固投票箱并提升其技术水平。许多民主党领导人一直推动扩大投票箱的使用范围，俄勒冈州和宾夕法尼亚州等州也正在增设投票箱，以覆盖更多选民。

与此同时，许多共和党官员力主限制甚至禁止使用投票箱，理由是需要加强监管和更严格的监管链规则。他们认为，投票箱可能导致未经授权的选票收集——也就是所谓的“选票收割”——而且各县的监管措施差异过大。

但支持使用投票箱的选举官员表示，投票箱比以往任何时候都更加重要，是确保所有选票都能及时送达的关键工具。尽管最高法院阻止了特朗普政府大幅限制邮寄投票的企图，但选举官员警告说，美国邮政服务处理和盖邮戳方式的改变可能会导致选票送达过晚。

近年来，为了削减成本，邮政部门减少了数千个地方邮局和处理中心之间的运输次数，这意味着一些邮件在加盖邮戳之前可能会停留更长时间。在一些州，邮戳是判断迟到选票是否有效的依据，这种延误可能会使原本有效的选票面临风险。

在华盛顿州，民主党参议员玛丽亚·坎特韦尔和州务卿史蒂夫·霍布斯发布了一份报告，指出该州2026年8月举行的初选中，因邮寄选票迟到而被拒收的数量比2024年初选增加了32%。在该州的两个县，迟到被拒收的选票数量更是飙升了300%以上。

布鲁金斯学会对今年加利福尼亚州、华盛顿州和北卡罗来纳州这三个州的初选选票进行了一项研究，这三个州都公布了邮寄选票被拒收的原因，研究发现，在受美国邮政服务处理方式改变影响的地区，迟到选票的拒收率大约翻了一番。

霍布斯告诉CNN：“我们一直在强调选民应该使用投票箱而不是邮箱。如果他们一定要用邮箱，那就尽早寄出。如果距离选举日只有10天，那段时间就非常危险了，你的选票可能根本送达不了。”

美国邮政部门坚称，如果选民在选举日至少一周前寄回选票，选票应该能够按时送达。

美国邮政署表示，在今年的初选中，其按时送达的选举邮件比例为97.94%。在2024年大选中，美国邮政署表示，其三天内送达的选票比例为99.6%。

“随着选举临近，我们将实施与以往联邦选举周期一致的程序，以确保已填妥的选票能够尽快送达选举办公室，”美国邮政总局发言人告诉 CNN，他指的是该机构在选举期间为加快选票递送而采取的“非常措施”。

投票箱一直是特朗普和其他2020年大选否认者怀疑的对象。特朗普本人也曾呼吁各州禁止使用投票箱。

广受质疑的影片《2000个骡子》声称，在2020年大选中，有人利用投票箱进行大规模的选民舞弊，所谓的“骡子”会将选票塞入投票箱。该片的创作者在2024年承认，其中一些说法存在缺陷。

但这并没有阻止围绕投票箱的阴谋论的传播，也没有阻止保守州立法者对投票箱的强烈反对。

据全国州议会联合会统计，包括2026年大选的关键州德克萨斯州和北卡罗来纳州在内的十多个州已禁止或不使用投票箱。在没有投票箱的州，选民通常仍然可以在办公时间内将选票投递到选举办公室。

据追踪各州选举法的投票权实验室（Voting Rights Lab）统计，自2021年以来，已有16个州通过法律禁止或以某种方式限制投票箱的使用，其中8个州完全取缔了投票箱。其他一些州则限制了投票箱的设置地点或数量，例如俄亥俄州规定每个县只能设置一个投票箱。

在威斯康星州，州最高法院在共和党控制时期曾禁止在2022年大选中使用投票箱。然而到了2024年，随着最高法院的组成重新向民主党倾斜，该州改变了立场，允许使用投票箱。该州将是否使用投票箱的决定权留给了各个负责选举的地方政府。

威斯康星州选举委员会民主党委员安·雅各布斯表示：“在很多情况下，我们看到的是一种奇怪的蓝红分歧，无论一个社区是否设有投票箱。许多共和党占优势的社区认为投票箱仍然不合法、不合规，因此没有向选民提供投票箱。奇怪的是，这反而使这些社区的选民更难进行缺席投票，因为他们无法直接递交选票。”

然而，在共和党占绝对优势的怀俄明州，由共和党控制的立法机构却一直不愿彻底禁止设置选票投放箱。

去年，在州务卿查克·格雷的敦促下，州众议院以压倒性多数通过了一项全面禁令。但该禁令在州参议院被否决，议员们倾向于一项折衷方案：要求在法院等政府建筑内安装新型、更安全的垃圾桶。

“我们始终无法克服这个分歧，”怀俄明州参议员布莱恩·博纳告诉 CNN，并补充说，立法者们仍在讨论前进的方向。

共和党人博纳表示，他支持出于安全考虑取消独立投票箱，但他所代表的是一个农村工人阶级选区，该选区的许多选民都依赖提前投票，因为怀俄明州法律只允许工人在选举日当天休息一小时去投票。

“坦白说，在怀俄明州的乡村地区，这点时间根本不够往返镇上，”他说。“我们这里有很多煤矿工人、油气田工人以及牧场主，对他们来说，这可能是他们唯一的机会——如果他们想提前投票，可能要等到下班后才能来投票。”

自 2020 年大选“被操纵”的虚假指控出现以来，投票箱就一直是人们怀疑和人身攻击的目标。

2022 年，随着电影《2000 骡子》的上映，蒙面男子手持长焦摄像机镜头在投票箱外跟踪选民，导致亚利桑那州州务卿将选民恐吓事件移交给司法部。

据洛杉矶县登记员办公室称，在今年 6 月加州初选之前，洛杉矶的一个投票箱里的选票被烧毁了。

2024年，华盛顿州温哥华市和俄勒冈州波特兰市的三个投票箱遭到炸弹袭击，联邦调查局认为这些事件是同一名袭击者所为，但嫌疑人始终逍遥法外。在波特兰，由于投票箱配备了更先进的灭火技术，400张选票中只有3张受损。

感谢 Greg Kimsey 提供图片

“这简直是噩梦般的场景。你根本无法预料到这种情况，”霍布斯说。“他们使用了铝热剂，这种东西可不是随处都能找到的。用水或者普通的灭火器也扑不灭。你需要一种能隔绝空气中氧气的特殊化学物质。华盛顿的投放箱里没有这种东西。”

全国各地的选举官员都在采用更先进的技术，以保护选举安全和追踪选票。

例如，克拉克县的投票箱现在配备了更先进的灭火系统，这是更广泛的改造现有投票箱计划的一部分，该计划旨在安装传感器，以检测热量或烟雾，并自动启动安全措施来保护选票。

宾夕法尼亚州、伊利诺伊州和加利福尼亚州的多个县已斥资数百万美元购置新一代高科技投票箱，旨在将防篡改设计、防火功能与数字化审计追踪相结合。这些投票箱会对每位投放选票的人进行拍照，扫描选票回寄信封以启动监管链追踪，并为选举官员创建详细记录。

“投票箱的种类很多：有的非常好，带有灭火装置；有的还不错；有的则很劣质，看起来就像是从家得宝之类的建材超市买来的，”威斯康星州戴恩县的办事员斯科特·麦克唐纳说道。“所以，我告诉办事员们，如果你们用的是家得宝那种投递箱，千万别用。想办法弄点钱买个像样的投票箱。”

长期以来，选举官员和美国邮政服务部门都建议选民为了安全起见，至少在选举前一周通过邮寄方式寄回选票。

威斯康星州的一些选举官员现在敦促选民至少在选举日14天前邮寄选票。

“选票要穿越整个州，所以他们白白开车好几个小时，”雅各布斯说。

俄勒冈州州务卿托比亚斯·里德表示，目前该州几乎所有邮件的邮戳都由一个处理中心负责。来自该州西南角的本地邮件现在需要往返500英里（约800公里）前往波特兰加盖邮戳。

“我们不希望人们再像以前那样，仅仅依靠邮件上的邮戳来判断其有效性，”他说。

美国邮政总局过去几年一直在改革邮件在全国的运输方式以降低成本。它将更多邮件从空运转移到陆运，延长了一级邮件的预计送达时间，并将处理工作集中在区域枢纽。最近，美国邮政总局减少了数千个地方邮局和处理中心之间的运输次数——这意味着一些邮件在盖邮戳之前可能会停留更长时间。

尽管美国邮政总局坚称正在提高效率，但根据美国政府问责局9月份发布的一份报告，该机构近期的大部分服务目标均未达成。报告指出，其削减成本的措施“导致部分邮件投递速度减慢，并对农村客户造成了不成比例的影响”。

这些延误对于邮寄选票来说至关重要，因为邮寄选票有严格的法律截止日期。即使只延误一天，也可能使临近选举日寄出的选票面临风险。而且，由于机器盖戳通常显示的是邮件的处理时间，而非邮政局收到邮件的时间，因此按时寄出的选票可能会收到较晚的邮戳。不过，邮政局发言人表示，选民可以前往邮局申请人工盖戳。

从10月24日起，美国邮政总局计划采取“非常措施”，如同以往选举中那样，通过增加取件次数、周日处理和加急处理等方式加快选票递送速度。在某些情况下，工作人员会将选票从普通邮件中取出，手工盖上邮戳，然后直接送至选举办公室。

大约有15个州允许计入选举日后收到的选票，前提是邮戳日期在规定时间内——最高法院今年维持了这一宽限期。而在其他一些州，选票必须在投票结束前送达选举官员，这使得选民拖延投票或邮件延误的缓冲时间更短。

亚利桑那州州务卿阿德里安·丰特斯表示：“我们一直努力让民众明白，亚利桑那州不是以邮戳为准的州，而是以收到实物为准的州。我们希望民众清楚，如果他们不想通过邮寄方式退回，可以选择亲自递交。”

丰特斯表示，他所在的州正在鼓励选民在线追踪选票，并注册短信提醒，以便了解选票何时送达——目前越来越多的州都提供这项工具。

在一些不允许使用投票箱的州，选民通常也有其他方式来寄回邮寄选票，例如在印第安纳州，他们可以将选票送到提前投票中心。

印第安纳州马里恩县的书记员凯特·斯威尼·贝尔表示，她在本轮选举中听到更多选民担心使用邮寄方式投票。

“他们认为美国邮政服务出了问题，所以他们不想邮寄，而是想知道能不能把邮件投递到投递箱里，”民主党人斯威尼·贝尔说。“我不得不告诉他们，‘不，我们没有投递箱，但你们还有其他选择。’”