(Pamela Cosel, Headline USA) A woman walking her dog on Saturday in East Hollywood reported to election officials that she found a discarded box containing 104 unopened ballot envelopes,” the Gateway Pundit reported.
“I turned the corner and I just saw this box of envelopes, and it was a USPS box,” Christina Repaci told KTTV. “I picked up some envelopes and I saw they were ballots.”
Repaci said she took the box and ballots home with her and made videos of the ballots, posting the images to social media as she decided what to do.
According to FOX11, she called various politicians and the LA County Sheriff’s Department, who told her to contact USPS.
The Los Angeles Registrar Dean Logan came to Repaci’s home to pick up the unopened ballots, which are believed to be a case of mail theft and not an attempt to interfere with the election results, according to Logan.
“Our office was notified over the weekend of a mail tray found containing approximately 104 unopened, outbound Vote by Mail ballots and additional mail pieces,” said a statement from the registrar’s office.
“Thanks to the cooperation of the person who found the ballots, we were able to quickly respond and coordinate the secure pickup of the ballots,” it continued. “We have reissued new ballots to the impacted voters.”
California’s lax security in past elections has been a source of criticism and concern. Conservative transparency watchdog Judicial Watch has identified millions of invalid voters on the rolls in Los Angeles and other counties, even after forcing LA County to clean its dirty voter lists as part of a 2019 legal settlement.
Democrat leaders have instead doubled down, enacting laws to automatically mail ballots to every voter and also allowing third-party activists and labor unions to conduct ballot-harvesting operations.
In the 2020 election, at least 440,000 ballots were reported to have gone out to dead, out-of-state or otherwise ineligible voters.
After the election, two men were also charged with submitting thousands of fraudulent ballot applications.
During last year’s recall election, controversy arose after reports that voters would even be able to download and print their own ballots from home.
Meanwhile, return envelops were criticized for clearly violating voter privacy by displaying through the envelope whether an individual had chosen to recall Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Nonetheless, LA’s registrar claimed that there was no cause for concern following Saturday’s discovery.
“Security protocols such as signature verification are in place to protect against any misuse or wrongdoing of Vote by Mail ballots,” said the registrar’s statement.
“If a voter sees or hears something that could impact the voting process, they are encouraged to call our office directly at (800) 815-2666 or email [email protected],” it continued.
The registrar also recommended that anyone who had not received a ballot by the end of the week enroll in “Where’s My Ballot?” The service sends notifications by text, email, and voicemail to voters throughout California.
Residents of California are allowed to vote by mail from now until the day of the state’s June 7 primary elections.
Cast ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and will be counted if they are received up to one week after June 7, according to rules on the California Secretary of State’s website.
Each county in California also sends to registered voters a sample ballot and voter information guide in advance of mailing actual ballots.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
