Hundreds of ballots are destroyed after fires are set in ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington

SEATTLE (AP) — Authorities were investigating Monday after early morning fires were set in ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and in nearby Vancouver, Washington, where hundreds of ballots were destroyed.

The Portland Police Bureau reported that officers and firefighters responded to a fire in one ballot drop box at about 3:30 a.m. and determined an incendiary device had been placed inside. Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said a fire suppressant inside the drop box protected nearly all the ballots; only three were damaged, and his office planned to contact those voters to help them obtain replacement ballots.

A few hours later, across the Columbia River in Vancouver, television crews captured footage of smoke pouring out of a ballot box at a transit center. Vancouver is in Washington's 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey in Vancouver told The Associated Press that the ballot drop box at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center also had a fire suppression system inside, but for some reason it wasn't effective. Responders pulled a burning pile of ballots from inside the box, and Kimsey said hundreds were lost.

"Heartbreaking," Kimsey said. "It's a direct attack on democracy."

The last ballot pickup at the transit center drop box was at 11 a.m. Saturday, Kimsey said. Anyone who dropped their ballot there after that was urged to contact the auditor's office to obtain a new one.

The office will be increasing how frequently it collects ballots, Kimsey said, and changing collection times to the evening, to keep the ballot boxes from remaining full of ballots overnight when similar crimes are considered more likely to occur.

An incendiary device was also found on or near a ballot drop box in downtown Vancouver early on Oct. 8. It did not damage the box or destroy any ballots, police said. The FBI and other agencies had been investigating.

Washington and Oregon are both vote-by-mail states. Registered voters receive their ballots in the mail a few weeks before elections and then return them by mail or by placing them in ballot drop boxes.

In Phoenix last week, officials said roughly five ballots were destroyed and others damaged when a fire was set in a drop box at a U.S. Postal Service station there.