Containers with hundreds of ballots in Miami-Dade County, Florida, were found on the side of a road overnight after they fell out of a county truck, the Elections Department confirmed Tuesday.
Christina White, the county’s elections supervisor, said the containers were sealed, and the ballots had already been scanned and tabulated. The Miami-Dade Elections Department released a statement saying the incident was due to “human error” and that none of the ballots were tampered with.
“The worker forgot to lock the back of the truck, and as they drove off, one sealed bin and one sealed bag fell out,” Christina White, the county’s elections supervisor, said Tuesday morning.
The incident happened between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. The county worker driving the truck did not immediately stop after the ballots fell out. Another driver passing by the scene retrieved the containers, according to a video from Only in Dade.
As seen in the video, the passerby drove the ballots to a police office, where they were handled.
“Upon arrival at the police department, election staff verified all seals were intact, and nothing was tampered with or damaged,” White told the Miami Herald. “Thankfully, this was observed in real-time by upstanding citizens who did the right thing and turned the bin and bag into the police department,” White said.
