Mail stolen from pried-open Tumalo mailboxes – including 23 unopened ballots – found dumped along Hunnell Road
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – A large amount of mail – including 23 unopened mail ballots - was stolen from pried-open cluster mailboxes in Tumalo and was recovered Friday, having been dumped along Hunnell and Loco roads on Bend’s north end, Deschutes County sheriff’s deputies said.
The sheriff’s office was contacted around 8:30 a.m. Friday by a citizen driving through the area who spotted a large amount of mail on the side of the road near Hunnell and Loco roads, Sergeant Jay Minton said in a news release.
The mail apparently was taken from an adjacent pair of locked, cluster-style mailboxes in Tumalo that had been pried open when deputies arrived.
Most of the recovered mail was addressed to homes in the area of 94th Street, which runs between Tumalo Road and the Old Bend-Redmond Highway, Minton said, while some was destined for “a few other streets in the vicinity.”
All of the 23 recovered ballots had been unopened, the sergeant said, although “other pieces of mail were opened, and the contents appeared to be missing.”
“We don’t believe the ballots were the intended items to be stolen by the unknown suspect,” Minton said.
All of the stolen and recovered ballots were returned to the Deschutes County Clerk’s Office, Minton said. If you haven’t received your ballot by next Wednesday, Minton advised contacting County Clerk Steve Dennison at 541-388-6547.
“The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office would like to remind our community to be vigilant in monitoring their mail as it is delivered to them,” Minton said. “Mail theft unfortunately occurs throughout the year, but historically begins to rise at this time during the year through the holidays,”
Minton said the sheriff’s office recommends community members check their mail frequently and avoid leaving it in mailboxes overnight.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service oversees investigations of mail theft, U.S. Postal Service regional spokeswoman Kim Frum said. She also noted that the USPS offers a free Informed Delivery service, which sends a daily email preview of what mail or packages are due to arrive in a customer’s mailbox.
While Hunnell Road is where a roadside homeless encampment was removed by the city of Bend last year, Minton said there are no current camps in the immediate vicinity of the recovered stolen mail. “We have not linked this case to any transient camps or person(s) at this time,” the sergeant said.
There also is no way at this point in time to know if any stolen ballots were kept by the theft suspect or suspects. But Dennison, the county clerk, said there are safeguards to prevent anyone from using someone else's ballot to vote, should they try to do so.
He clarified that the returned, stolen ballots would not just be mailed back out again – they were inactivated and replacement ballots are being mailed out.
All turned-in ballots undergo signature verification, Dennison noted, and it’s also possible the intended recipients would contact his office to say they did not receive their ballot.
“We’re not accepting ballots with no signature” on the return envelope, he said, nor ones with invalid signatures,
In a later news release, statement, Dennison said: "Thank you to the Sheriff's Office and local law enforcement for recovering the discarded ballots from the stolen mail, allowing our office to issue valid replacements. Voters can be assured that if they don't receive their ballots by next Wednesday, we have a process to issue new ones. Only valid ballots with verified signatures will be counted."
