2026-10-07T09:00:45.378Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
如果有人再次试图纵火焚烧华盛顿州克拉克县的投票箱，选举官员将立刻知晓此事。
克拉克县审计师格雷格·金西告诉CNN，2024年一名袭击者用装有铝热剂的爆炸装置纵火焚烧投票箱，导致约500张选票受损，此后该县对投票箱进行了升级。新投票箱搭载的技术可在箱内温度超过特定阈值、箱体受到重击或被移出地理围栏区域时向官员发送短信。
金西补充称，克拉克县还采购了升级后的灭火装置，以防止选票在火灾中被毁，同时正在所有投票箱点位安装监控摄像头——尽管2024年遭袭击的点位此前已配备摄像头。
“令人欣慰的是，即便在那起可怕事件发生后不久，选民仍继续使用投票箱，”金西表示，“我们认为已采取适当措施保障投票箱内选票的安全。我们回收选票的频率比过去略高一些。”
投票箱在大多数州都是选民在选举日前便捷返还选票的途径。然而，在2020年大选及唐纳德·特朗普总统关于选举欺诈的虚假言论之后，投票箱成为了关于选票造假的毫无根据的阴谋论的焦点，也成为了袭击目标。
此后数年，共和党和民主党官员都对投票箱进行了严格审视，但视角截然不同。
一些县投入数百万美元加固投票箱并提升其技术含量。许多民主党领导人推动扩大投票箱的使用范围，俄勒冈州和宾夕法尼亚州等正新增投票箱以覆盖更多选民。
与此同时，许多共和党官员推动限制甚至禁止使用投票箱，称需要更严格的监控和更完善的选票交接链规则。他们认为，投票箱可能导致未经授权的选票收集——也就是一些人所说的“选票收割”，且各州各县的安保标准差异过大。
但支持使用投票箱的选举官员表示，这一工具如今比以往任何时候都更重要，可确保所有选票按时返还。尽管最高法院阻止了特朗普政府大幅限制邮寄投票的尝试，但选举官员警告称，美国邮政服务局处理和加盖邮戳方式的变化，可能导致选票逾期送达。
为在近年削减成本，美国邮政局减少了数千家当地邮局与处理中心之间的往返班次，这意味着部分邮件在加盖邮戳前可能会滞留更久。在以邮戳时间判定逾期选票是否有效的州，这种延误可能让原本有效的选票面临被拒的风险。
华盛顿州民主党参议员玛丽亚·坎特韦尔和州务卿史蒂夫·霍布斯发布的一份报告显示，与2024年初选相比，该州2026年8月初选因逾期送达被拒的邮寄选票增加了32%。该州两个县的逾期被拒选票数量增幅更是超过300%。
布鲁金斯学会对加州、华盛顿州和北卡罗来纳州三个州今年的初选选票进行的研究发现，受美国邮政局处理流程变化影响的地区，逾期送达选票的拒票率大致翻了一番。这三个州都会公开邮寄选票被拒原因的数据。
“我们一直在向选民强调，使用投票箱而非邮箱。如果选择使用邮箱，务必尽早邮寄，”霍布斯告诉CNN，“距离选举10天时，就是危险区间，你的选票可能按时送达，也可能无法按时送达。”
美国邮政局坚称，如果选民至少在选举日前一周寄回选票，选票就能按时送达。
美国邮政局表示，在今年的初选中，该局97.94%的选举邮件“按时送达”。2024年大选期间，美国邮政局称99.6%的选票在3天内送达。
“随着选举临近，我们将采取与以往联邦选举周期一致的程序，确保已填妥的选票被优先送往选举办公室，”美国邮政局发言人告诉CNN，他指的是该局在选举期间用于加快选票递送的“特殊措施”。
投票箱一直是特朗普和其他2020年大选否认者的重点怀疑对象。特朗普本人曾呼吁各州禁止使用投票箱。
早已被广泛揭穿的影片《2000匹骡子》声称，2020年大选期间有人通过所谓的“骡子”向投票箱塞入选票，从而实施大规模选举欺诈。该片制作者在2024年承认，其中部分说法存在缺陷。
但这并未阻止围绕投票箱的阴谋论扩散，也未能阻止红州议员对投票箱的反弹。
根据美国全国州议会会议的数据，超过10个州禁止或不使用投票箱，其中包括2026年的摇摆州得克萨斯州和北卡罗来纳州。没有投票箱的州的选民通常仍可在工作时间内将选票送至选举办公室。
追踪州选举法律的投票权实验室的数据显示，自2021年以来，已有16个州通过法律以各种方式禁止或限制投票箱，其中8个州彻底禁止使用投票箱。其他州则限制了投票箱的部署地点或使用数量，例如俄亥俄州规定每个县只能使用一个投票箱。
在威斯康星州，2022年由共和党控制的州最高法院禁止使用投票箱。2024年，随着法院组成转向民主党，该州改变了立场，允许使用投票箱。该州将是否使用投票箱的决定权交给了负责选举的各地方政府。
“在很多情况下，一个社区是否设有投票箱，奇怪地呈现出红蓝阵营的分化，”威斯康星州选举委员会民主党委员安·雅各布斯说道，“许多红区的选民认为投票箱仍然非法、不合规，因此不向选民提供投票箱。奇怪的是，这反而让他们的选民更难进行缺席投票，因为他们无法直接交票。”
然而在深红州怀俄明州，由共和党控制的州议会并未彻底禁止使用投票箱。
去年，在州务卿查克·格雷的敦促下，州众议院以压倒性多数通过了全面禁令。但该法案在州参议院夭折，议员们更倾向于折中方案：要求在法院大楼等政府建筑内安装新的更安全的投票箱。
“我们就是无法就分歧达成一致，”怀俄明州参议员布莱恩·博纳告诉CNN，并补充称议员们仍在讨论推进路径。
博纳是共和党人，他表示出于安全原因支持取消独立式投票箱，但他代表的是一个以农村工人阶级为主的选区，当地许多选民依赖提前投票——因为怀俄明州法律规定，选民在选举日只能请假一小时投票。
“坦率地说，在怀俄明州农村地区，这点时间甚至不够往返县城一趟，”他说，“我们有很多煤矿工人、油气田工人和牧场主，这可能是他们唯一的投票机会——如果他们想提前投票，可能只能在下班后进城时进行。”
自2020年大选出现“舞弊”的虚假言论以来，投票箱一直既是怀疑的目标，也是人身攻击的目标。
2022年，《2000匹骡子》上映后，蒙面男子带着长焦镜头在投票箱外跟踪选民，促使亚利桑那州务卿向司法部提交了选民恐吓的相关举报。
洛杉矶县选举登记员表示，今年6月加州初选前，洛杉矶一处投票箱内的选票被烧毁。
2024年，华盛顿州温哥华和俄勒冈州波特兰各有三个投票箱遭遇爆炸袭击，联邦调查局将这些事件与同一袭击者关联，但始终未抓获嫌疑人。在波特兰，由于投票箱配备了更好的灭火技术，箱内400张选票中仅有3张受损。
“这是一种噩梦般的场景，你根本无法提前应对，”霍布斯说，“袭击者使用了铝热剂，这种东西不是随处可买的，也无法用水或普通灭火器扑灭，需要使用特殊的化学药剂隔绝氧气。华盛顿州的那台投票箱当时就没有配备这种装置。”
全美各地的选举官员正在采用更先进的技术，用于安保和选票追踪。
例如，克拉克县的投票箱现在配备了更先进的灭火系统，这是更广泛的改造现有投票箱计划的一部分，这些投票箱将配备检测热量或烟雾的传感器，并自动启动安保措施以保护选票。
宾夕法尼亚州、伊利诺伊州和加利福尼亚州的县已斥资数百万美元采购新一代高科技投票箱，旨在将防篡改设计、防火保护与数字审计追踪相结合。这些投票箱会为每位投递者拍照，扫描选票返还信封以启动交接链追踪，并为选举官员创建详细记录。
“投票箱的质量参差不齐：有非常出色的带灭火系统的款式，有相当不错的款式，还有那种看起来像是从家得宝买的劣质货，”威斯康星州戴恩县书记员斯科特·麦克唐奈说道，“所以我告诉书记员们，如果你用的是家得宝那种款式，别用了，拿钱去买个合格的投票箱。”
长期以来，选举官员和美国邮政局都建议选民至少在选举日前一周通过邮寄方式返还选票，以确保安全。
威斯康星州的一些选举官员现在敦促选民至少在选举日前14天邮寄选票。
“选票要横穿整个州，毫无必要地在路上奔波数小时，”雅各布斯说。
俄勒冈州务卿托拜厄斯·里德表示，现在全州几乎所有邮件都要在一个设施内加盖邮戳。该州西南部的本地邮件现在需要往返500英里前往波特兰加盖邮戳。
“我们不想让人们再依赖过去邮件加盖邮戳的方式，”他说。
过去几年，美国邮政局一直在全面改革全国邮件运输流程以削减成本。该局将更多邮件从航空运输改为陆路运输，延长了一等邮件的预计送达时间，并将处理工作整合到区域中心。最近，美国邮政局减少了数千家当地邮局与处理中心之间的往返班次，这意味着部分邮件在加盖邮戳前可能会滞留更久。
尽管该局坚称正在提高效率，但根据美国政府问责局9月的一份报告，美国邮政局最近的多数服务目标都未达成。报告称，其削减成本的措施“减缓了部分邮件的送达速度，对农村客户的影响尤为严重”。
这些延误对邮寄选票而言可能是致命的，因为邮寄选票有着严格的法律截止期限。哪怕只是一天的延误，都可能让临近选举日寄出的选票面临风险。而且由于机器加盖的邮戳通常显示的是邮件处理时间，而非美国邮政局收到邮件的时间，按时寄出的选票可能会被盖上较晚的邮戳。不过美国邮政局发言人表示，选民可以在邮局申请手动加盖邮戳。
从10月24日开始，美国邮政局计划实施“特殊措施”，如同以往选举期间那样，通过增加取件次数、周日处理和优先处理来加快选票递送速度。在某些情况下，工作人员会将选票从常规邮件流中取出，手动加盖邮戳并直接送往选举办公室。
大约15个州允许在选举日后送达的选票仍被计入，前提是选票加盖邮戳的时间符合要求——最高法院今年保留了这项宽限期。在其他州，选票必须在投票站关闭前送达选举办公室，留给选民拖延或邮件延误的缓冲空间很小。
“我们会尽力让大家知道，亚利桑那州不看邮戳，我们看的是实际收到的时间，”亚利桑那州务卿阿德里安·丰特斯说，“我们希望大家清楚，如果不想通过邮寄方式投票，他们有亲自返还选票的选择。”
丰特斯表示，该州正在鼓励选民在线追踪选票并注册短信提醒，以便了解选票是否送达——目前越来越多的州都提供了这项工具。
在不允许使用投票箱的州，选民通常也有其他方式返还邮寄选票，例如印第安纳州，选民可以将选票送至提前投票点。
印第安纳州马里恩县书记员凯特·斯威尼·贝尔表示，她本选举周期听到更多选民表示害怕通过邮寄方式投票。
“他们认为美国邮政局内部可能存在猫腻，不想邮寄选票，想知道能不能放进投票箱，”民主党人斯威尼·贝尔说道，“我必须告诉他们：‘不行，我们没有投票箱，但这里有其他选择。’”
Why election officials are pushing voters to ‘use the drop box rather than the mailbox’
2026-10-07T09:00:45.378Z / CNN
If someone tries to firebomb a ballot drop box again in Clark County, Washington, election officials will know about it immediately.
That’s because after about 500 ballots were damaged in 2024 by an assailant who set fire to drop boxes with an explosive device containing thermite, the county upgraded its drop boxes. They now include technology that sends a text message to officials if the temperature inside the box rises above a certain temperature, if the box receives a forceful blow or if it’s removed from its geo-fenced location, Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey told CNN.
Clark County also purchased upgraded fire suppressant devices to prevent the destruction of ballots in a fire, Kimsey added, and it’s installing surveillance cameras at all of its drop box locations, though cameras were in place where boxes were attacked in 2024.
“I’m really pleased that even just immediately following that horrible incident, voters continued to use ballot drop boxes,” Kimsey said. “We think we’ve taken the appropriate steps to ensure the safety of the ballots in the ballot drop boxes. We’ve been retrieving ballots on a little more frequent schedule than we have in the past.”
Drop boxes are available in most states as a way for voters to conveniently return their ballots ahead of Election Day. In the aftermath of the 2020 election and President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, however, they became a source of baseless conspiracy theories about ballot stuffing and a target for attacks.
In the years since, both Republican and Democratic officials have taken a hard look at ballot drop boxes — but through sharply different lenses.
Some counties have invested millions of dollars into fortifying them and making them more high tech. Many Democratic leaders have pushed to expand their use, and states like Oregon and Pennsylvania are adding drop boxes to reach more voters.
Many Republican officials, meanwhile, have pushed to restrict or even ban drop boxes, arguing they need tighter surveillance and stricter chain-of-custody rules. They contend the boxes can enable unauthorized ballot collection — what some call “ballot harvesting” — and that safeguards vary too widely from county to county.
But election officials who advocate for drop boxes say they’re a more important tool than ever to ensure all ballots get returned on time. Even though the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to significantly restrict mail voting, election officials are warning that a change to the way the US Postal Service processes and postmarks the mail risks ballots arriving too late.
To cut costs in recent years, the Postal Service has reduced trips between thousands of local post offices and processing centers, which means some mail may sit longer before being postmarked. In states that use postmarks to determine whether late-arriving ballots count, that delay could put otherwise valid votes in jeopardy.
In Washington state, Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell and Secretary of State Steve Hobbs released a report finding mail ballots rejected for arriving late increased 32% in the state’s August 2026 primary compared with the 2024 primary. In two of the state’s counties, the number of rejected late ballots spiked more than 300%.
A Brookings study of primary ballots in three states this year — California, Washington and North Carolina, which all release public data on the reasons mail ballots are rejected — found that the rejection rate for late-arriving ballots roughly doubled in areas affected by the USPS processing changes.
“We’re really emphasizing to our voters that they use the drop box rather than the mailbox. And if they are going to use the mailbox, just mail it early,” Hobbs told CNN. “If you’re 10 days from the election, that’s the danger area where your ballot may or not make it.”
The US Postal Service insists that ballots should arrive on time if voters mail them back at least a week before Election Day.
USPS says it delivered 97.94% of election mail “with an on-time score” during this year’s primaries. In the 2024 general election, USPS says it delivered 99.6% of ballots within three days.
“As we move closer to the election, we will implement procedures consistent with past Federal election cycles to ensure completed ballots are expedited to election offices,” a USPS spokesperson told CNN, referring to the “extraordinary measures” it uses during elections to speed up ballot delivery.
Drop boxes have been frequent objects of suspicion for Trump and other 2020 election deniers. Trump himself has called for states to ban them.
The widely debunked film “2000 Mules” alleged that drop boxes were used for widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election through so-called mules stuffing them with ballots. The film’s creator admitted in 2024 that some of the claims were flawed.
But that hasn’t stopped conspiracies surrounding drop boxes from percolating — and from a backlash toward the boxes among red-state legislators.
Drop boxes are banned or not used in more than 10 states, including 2026 battlegrounds Texas and North Carolina, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Voters in states without drop boxes still typically can drop off ballots at an election office during business hours.
Sixteen states passed laws since 2021 to ban or restrict drop boxes in some ways, including eight that outlawed them, according to Voting Rights Lab, which tracks state election laws. Other states have limited where they can be deployed or how many can be used, such as in Ohio, which allows only one drop box per county.
In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court blocked drop boxes for the 2022 election when it was controlled by Republicans. Then in 2024, after the makeup of the court shifted back toward Democrats, the state changed course and allowed them. The state leaves the decision to use drop boxes up to each locality running elections.
“What we have in many situations is oddly a blue-red division whether or not a community has drop boxes,” said Ann Jacobs, a Democratic commissioner on the Wisconsin Elections Commission. “Many of the red communities, thinking they’re still somehow illegal and not proper, are not having them available to their voters. Oddly, that makes absentee voting harder for their voters because they can’t just turn them in.”
In deep-red Wyoming, however, the Republican-controlled Legislature has balked at banning ballot drop boxes outright.
Last year, at Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s urging, the state House overwhelmingly approved a full ban. But it died in the state Senate, where lawmakers favored a compromise: requiring new, more secure receptacles built into government buildings such as courthouses.
“We just couldn’t get past that disagreement,” Wyoming state Sen. Brian Boner told CNN, adding that lawmakers are still discussing a path forward.
Boner, a Republican, said he supports eliminating stand-alone drop boxes for security reasons, but he represents a rural, working-class district where many constituents rely on early voting, since Wyoming law grants workers just one hour off to vote on Election Day.
“Frankly, in rural Wyoming, that’s just not enough time to even do the round trip into town and back,” he said. “We have lots of coal miners, oil and gas field workers, and ranchers who maybe that’s their only opportunity — when they come in, perhaps after business hours, to vote early if that’s what they want to do.”
Since the false claims of a “rigged” 2020 election, drop boxes have been a target of both suspicion and physical attacks.
In 2022, following the release of “2000 Mules,” masked men with telescopic camera lenses stalked voters outside drop boxes, prompting voter intimidation referrals from the Arizona secretary of state to the Justice Department.
Ahead of this year’s June California primary, ballots were burned at a drop box in Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles County’s Registrar-Recorder.
And in 2024, three ballot boxes were bombed in Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, incidents the FBI connected to the same assailant, but a suspect was never arrested. In Portland, where the boxes had better fire suppressant technology, only three ballots out of 400 inside were damaged.
“It’s one of those nightmare scenarios. You don’t really plan for it,” Hobbs said. “Thermite was used, which you can’t just pick up anywhere. You can’t just put it out with water or your standard fire extinguisher. You need a special chemical that takes oxygen out of the air. The drop box in Washington did not have that.”
Election officials across the country are turning to more advanced technology, both for protection and ballot tracking.
Clark County’s boxes, for instance, now have more advanced fire suppression, part of a broader push to retrofit existing boxes with sensors that detect heat or smoke and automatically deploy safeguards to protect the ballots.
Counties in Pennsylvania, Illinois and California have spent millions of dollars on a new generation of high-tech drop boxes that aim to combine tamper-resistant design and fire protection with a digital audit trail. The boxes photograph each person who makes a deposit, scan the ballot-return envelope to initiate chain-of-custody tracking, and create a detailed record for election officials.
“There’s a range of drop boxes: There’s the really, really good ones with fire suppression, then ones that are pretty good, then there’s crummy ones which look like you bought at Home Depot or something,” said Scott McDonell, clerk of Dane County, Wisconsin. “So, I tell the clerks, if you’ve got a Home Depot one, don’t do it. Get the money to get a decent drop box.”
It’s long been the guidance from both election officials and the US Postal Service for voters to return ballots through the mail at least one week before the election to be safe.
Some election officials in Wisconsin are now urging voters to mail them at least 14 days before Election Day.
“Ballots are taking this trip across the state, so they’re driving hours upon hours for no good reason,” Jacobs said.
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said there’s now one facility that processes postmarks for nearly all mail in the state. Local mail from the southwest corner of the state now make a 500-mile roundtrip to Portland to be postmarked.
“We don’t want people to count on what used to be the case for when a piece of mail is postmarked,” he said.
The US Postal Service has spent the past several years overhauling how mail moves across the country to cut costs. It has shifted more mail from air to ground, extended expected delivery times for First-Class Mail and consolidated processing at regional hubs. More recently, USPS has reduced trips between thousands of local post offices and processing centers — meaning some mail may sit longer before it is postmarked.
While the agency insists it is improving efficiency, USPS has missed most of its recent service targets, according to a September report from the US Government Accountability Office. Its cost-cutting measures “have slowed service for some mail and had a disproportionate impact on rural customers,” the report said.
Those delays can be critical for mailed ballots, which face strict legal deadlines. Even a one-day delay can put a ballot mailed close to Election Day at risk. And because machine postmarks generally show when mail is processed — not necessarily when USPS receives it — a ballot mailed on time could receive a later postmark. However, voters can request a manual postmark at a Post Office, the USPS spokesperson said.
Starting October 24, USPS plans to implement “extraordinary measures,” as it has in past elections, to speed up ballot delivery with extra pickups, Sunday processing and expedited handling. In some cases, workers will pull ballots from the regular mail stream, postmark them by hand and deliver them directly to election offices.
Roughly 15 states allow ballots that arrive after Election Day to be counted, provided they were postmarked on time — grace periods the Supreme Court left intact this year. In other states, ballots must reach election officials before the polls close, leaving less of a buffer for voter procrastination or mail delays.
“We try very hard to work with folks to know that Arizona is not a postmark state, we’re an in-hand state,” said Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. “We want folks to just make it clear they’ve got options to return it in person if they don’t want to return it by mail.”
Fontes said his state is encouraging voters to track their ballot online and sign up for text alerts so they know when it’s delivered — a tool now offered in a growing number of states.
In states where drop boxes aren’t allowed, voters also often have alternatives to return mail ballots, like in Indiana, where they can deliver them to an early voting center.
Kate Sweeney Bell, the clerk in Marion County, Indiana, said she’s heard more from voters this cycle who are fearful of using the mail to vote.
“They think that something hinky is happening at the United States Postal Service, and instead of mailing them, they want to know whether they can put them in a drop box,” said Sweeney Bell, a Democrat. “And I have to tell them, ‘No, we don’t have that, but here are your options.’”