Two mail tubs containing correspondence, including 92 ballots for the November 3 general election, were found in a trash container at Golden Gardens Park in Ballard. All the ballots had already been declared invalid before voting began, and replacements had been issued to their intended recipients. The U.S. Postal Service and the Postal Inspection Service are investigating how they ended up there.
At the waterfront park, where people come in the fall to take in views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains, the discovery was strikingly ordinary—and all the more unsettling for it: unopened envelopes that had never reached their recipients lay among discarded items. King County Elections confirmed that the two mail tubs were found this week. Seattle police searched 26 trash cans in two Golden Gardens parking lots but found no other ballots.
Authorities have not said who discarded the mail or how it ended up in the park. The county has turned the information over to the USPS and the federal Postal Inspection Service. Elections officials say incidents like this during major campaigns are usually linked to mail theft, not attempts to influence election results: ballots wind up among stolen correspondence and are later discarded as unwanted.
But for each of the 92 recipients, this was not a statistical glitch; it was a risk of missing the familiar letter that, in Washington state, effectively serves as an entry ticket to the voting process. With just over a week until Election Day, King County reminds voters that they can return their ballots by mail, drop them in an official ballot box, or deliver them in person to a voting center. In this election, the difference between these options is especially clear: ballot boxes bypass the regular mail system and deliver envelopes directly to election officials.
The fact that an unmarked ballot falls into someone else’s hands does not, by itself, mean it can be used to vote. The original ballot and its replacement are tied to the same voter, and the system will accept only one. Before an envelope is opened and the vote is counted, staff compare the signature with the voter registration record; if they do not match, the voter is given a chance to resolve the issue. That is why the county was able to invalidate the ballots found and send out replacements immediately, without waiting for the investigation to conclude.
This is not the first such incident in King County in 2026. In April, about 380 unused ballots from past elections—mostly from 2022 to 2025—were found near a trash container in Renton. An initial review indicated that they had likely been delivered to private mailboxes but not collected by their recipients. Even so, the incident was referred to federal and local law enforcement. Elections officials used it as a reminder: if you find someone else’s mail, turn it over to the authorities immediately rather than turning it into a political spectacle.
The latest discovery comes amid heightened tensions around voting. In October 2024, an arson attack on a ballot box in Vancouver, Washington, damaged hundreds of ballots that had already been dropped off; Clark County then tracked down voters and issued replacements. This week, Gov. Bob Ferguson offered auditors in all 39 counties the option of requesting National Guard members to unobtrusively monitor ballot boxes and other busy voting locations. The plan called for observers to be out of uniform, unarmed, and not to interact with voters.
For anyone who still has not received their ballot, King County advises not to wait: voters can request or download a replacement and check its mailing status through the voter information service. If anyone finds discarded ballots, Elections officials ask them to photograph the envelopes, note where they were found, and email the information. In a vote-by-mail system, trust begins not on the day votes are counted, but when the letter actually reaches the mailbox.
Based on: Undelivered ballots found at Golden Gardens after apparent mail theft