‘DISGRACE TO DEMOCRACY’

Dozens of Ballots Destroyed After Drop Box Set on Fire Outside Boston Library

The Boston Election Department said 87 of the 122 ballots inside the box “were legible and able to be processed” after the attack.

Federal authorities have launched an investigation after a ballot drop box was set ablaze in Boston in an apparently deliberate act. The fire was set around 4 a.m. on Sunday morning outside the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, according to the Boston Police Department. Officials released two images of a man who appears to have been holding something with a bright flame as he walked toward the ballot box. The Boston Election Department posted on Twitter that dozens of ballots had been destroyed—but 87 of the 122 ballots inside the box “were legible and able to be processed.” In a joint statement, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin called the incident “a disgrace to democracy, a disrespect to the voters fulfilling their civic duty, and a crime.”