A United States Postal Service investigation has revealed that several mail collection boxes in Virginia have been tampered with, according to WAVY. Neither the USPS nor the Virginia Department of Elections know if any election mail was in the boxes at the time. Mail theft is a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.
"We received calls from several post offices that our blue boxes, located at the post offices, had been tampered with," said United States Postal Inspector Michael Romano. "It appears that we've had some level of mail stolen from these blue collection boxes."
The following post offices were affected:
Henrico
- 4990 Sadler Place
- 200 Starling Drive
- 2100 E. Parham Road
Chesterfield
- 7510 Lady Blair Lane
- 1201 Sycamore Square Drive
Richmond
- 805 Glenburnie Road
Romano said they don't have information about whether any of the boxes had election mail inside, but they are investigating if the theft has to do with Virginia voters mailing in ballots ahead of the November 3 election, WTVR reports.
"If we have any indication that it is, sort of, election fraud related, we are going to work closely with our counterparts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine what type of theft we have and aggressively investigate this case," he said.
Anyone who dropped off a ballot at any of the locations between 3 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Monday is asked to contact USPS at 877-876-2455 and report it. Voters can also keep up with their mail-in ballots through this ballot tracking website.
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