By Joshua Arnold

Some once-pungent phrases have become so overused they elicit only yawns. Take the phrase, “attack on democracy.” Georgia’s 2021 election security law was “Jim Crow 2.0,” President Joe Biden alleged, despite increased voter turnout in 2022 and now record-breaking early voting in 2024. Virginia’s recent attempt to purge 1,600 noncitizens from its voter rolls was “a vicious attack against our democracy,” exclaimed an activist legal group, yet the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Virginia to do so. With so many fake attacks on democracy to ignore, it’s worth remembering that real attacks on democracy can happen, too.

At approximately 3:30 a.m. Monday morning, the Portland, Ore. Police Bureau responded to a fire at a ballot drop box, which they discovered was started by “an incendiary device” attached to the outside. A nearby security guard at the county elections office alerted the police when he heard what sounded like a blast. A powder-based fire-suppression system protected most of the 400 ballots inside, and only three were damaged.

At around 4 a.m., a second ballot drop box was set on fire at a bus stop in Vancouver, Wash., just across the state line. There, the fire suppression system failed to protect the ballots, and police arrived to find the drop box “smoking and … on fire.” Hundreds of ballots were destroyed or damaged in the fire, and others were soaked as officials shoveled ballots out of the blaze into the falling rain. The targeted drop box was last emptied at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning. By Wednesday, officials announced that they had retrieved about 475 damaged ballots from the drop box, apart from an unknown number that were totally destroyed.

Authorities believe the two incidents, which occurred only 15 miles apart, are connected. The incendiary devices used in both arsons were similar, and police are now searching for a dark-colored Volvo sedan shown in surveillance footage. Authorities also believe there is a connection to a third incident, in which an incendiary device was placed at another Portland ballot drop box on October 8, but no ballots were damaged.

With Election Day only a week away, some people were eager to cast the ballot box arsons as part of a partisan narrative. “Without evidence, liberals on social media are blaming Republicans and MAGA, all the while ignoring the calls for years from Antifa to violently attack the democratic process,” noticed center-right journalist Andy Ngo.

Media reports chose a subtler approach. Axios wrote, “The arson comes as vote-by-mail voting has faced legal and political challenges, with litigation across the country and a growing web of election-related conspiracy theories.” Axios did not say who was mounting “legal and political challenges” to vote-by-mail schemes and spreading “election-related conspiracy theories” — at least, not in this article — but their readers would likely know who they meant to implicate.

The right-wing arson theory was never particularly likely, for the simple reason that Portland, Ore. is about the furthest place in the nation from “MAGA country.” The strongest argument in favor of this suspicion was that Vancouver, Wash. is part of Washington’s 3rd Congressional district, which is rated as a toss-up race by both RealClearPolitics and the Cook Political Report. However, this would not explain the attempted destruction of ballots across the river in deep-blue Portland.

National Review’s Jim Geraghty predicted that a left-wing agitator was more likely to carry out the attack. “The perpetrator could be anybody,” he granted, “but Portland is rife with Antifa, the Proud Boys, ‘Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Brigade’ (police-car-torching Israel-haters), and ‘Trantifa’ — you don’t want to know — as well as all kinds of garden-variety nutjobs.”

In the summer of 2020, a large group of organized anarchists carried out nightly attacks on the federal courthouse in Portland, confronting police and developing innovative new tactics for more than a month. The Department of Homeland Security warned this summer about online chatter sharing ways to attack ballot drop boxes with explosives.

As it turns out, investigators announced Wednesday that the message, “Free Gaza,” was written on the explosive devices used to attack all three ballot drop boxes. An anonymous official told The New York Times, “Investigators are trying to determine if the perpetrator was actually a pro-Palestinian activist or someone using that prominent cause to sow discord.” Either way, it seems that a MAGA attacker is no longer a possibility.

The ballot drop box attacks alarmed election officials in Washington and Oregon, where almost all votes are cast through the mail or in a drop box.

“An attack on a ballot box is an attack on our democracy and completely unacceptable,” declared Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade (D). “Whatever the motivation behind this incident, there is no justification for any attempt to disenfranchise voters.” Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said that authorities would be able to contact the three Oregon voters whose ballots were damaged.

In Clark County, Wash., where the destruction was more serious, election officials announced further measures. Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey called the arson “a direct attack on democracy.” He urged voters who dropped their ballots off after 11 a.m. on Saturday to contact his office for a replacement ballot. The county will also reach out to voters whose ballots were damaged, but that would have to wait until the ballots dried.

Kimsey also announced additional security measures, such as emptying drop box ballots in the evening and more frequently. The county will also hire additional staff to monitor the drop boxes 24/7 through the election, although they would not be authorized to confront anyone. Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) also condemned the arson as “a violent attack on democracy” and pledged to enhance security, which Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) also requested.

For voters who were worried about drop box security, Kinsey suggested they drop their ballots off before 5:30 p.m. to ensure same-day pick-up or bring them directly to his county office.

The Portland-area ballot arsons are not the only security breach of vote-by-mail ballots this election cycle. Last Thursday, a homeless man in Phoenix set fire to a U.S. Postal Service box containing about 20 ballots. Phoenix police arrested the suspect, who “has a decent history” with police, on an unrelated, outstanding warrant. The man later confessed to the arson, telling the police that he set fire to the mailbox because “he wanted to get arrested.” The incident demonstrates how vulnerable vote-by-mail election systems can be, even without intentional partisan sabotage.

In recognition of this fact, six states — Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and South Dakota — banned ballot drop boxes in 2020, while others like Iowa and Ohio permit only one drop box per county.

The Associated Press and CNN both contacted one Vancouver voter whose ballot was likely a casualty of the fire. John Burnside and his wife placed their ballots in the drop box, just as they have done in previous elections. The next morning, they learned about the fire on the news. They checked the status of their ballots online, did not see that they had been received, and immediately ordered new ballots. This time, they plan to drive across town to deliver their ballots in person. “It’s probably a 20-minute drive, but it’s well worth it at this point,” said Burnside. “I’m certainly in favor of in-person voting simply because you know your ballot goes through right then. It may be extra work, but it does add a level of security.”

“Having a giant pile of cast ballots sitting out in the middle of some parking lot, overnight and unmonitored, for weeks before the election seems like too much temptation for some politically obsessed yahoo who thinks he’s going to save the country by destroying somebody else’s ballots,” Geraghty agreed. “If I’m going to vote early, I want my ballot locked up and secure in some building like a county courthouse or county office or some other polling place. … If you’ve got a choice between a drop box in a parking lot or an actual building with door locks and alarms and all that, you should go with the latter.”

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.