A 34-year-old former United States Postal Service employee, Damon Matai Seei of Payson, Utah, has been charged after allegedly throwing hundreds of mail items, including ballots meant for voters, into a dumpster.
A federal grand jury indicted Seei last Wednesday on one count of unlawful secretion, destruction and delay of mail, according to court records that have been unsealed.
The US Department of Justice alleged that the ballots were being delivered to Utah residents ahead of the state’s June primary elections when Seei discarded them.
Seei was arrested and arraigned on Tuesday afternoon at the Orrin G. Hatch U.S. Courtroom.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the alleged conduct represented a serious offence because of its potential impact on voters.
“When American voters lawfully cast their vote, they should feel confident that it is counted,” McCotter said in a DOJ statement.
“Allegedly throwing away hundreds of ballots is a serious federal crime that undermines the integrity of our elections. Ballot integrity is not a partisan issue.”
According to the Justice Department, Seei worked as a USPS letter carrier earlier this year.
Prosecutors said that on June 3, he was delivering mail, advertisements and mail-in ballots to at least 300 residents in Eagle Mountain, Utah. The ballots were being sent ahead of the June 23 primary election.
A detention memo filed in the case alleged that Seei discarded the mail in a dumpster located in a church parking lot.
DOJ officials also alleged that Seei admitted during an interview that he threw away the mail “to lighten his workload” and “presumably” get home earlier.
The department said the alleged disposal prevented some voters from receiving their ballots before the election.
“Because of Seei’s actions, those voters never received these ballots, and some of these voters were not able to vote in the election,” the DOJ stated.
Prosecutors are seeking Seei’s release under a number of conditions while the case proceeds.
The proposed conditions include requiring him to report to a designated pretrial officer, maintain employment or make efforts to secure employment, surrender his passport and avoid interfering with mail delivery.
The restrictions would particularly apply to the handling and delivery of mail-in ballots.
Mail Voting Faces Changing Voter Preferences
The case comes amid a reported shift in how some voters plan to cast their ballots, with fewer voters saying they expect to use mail voting and more indicating they intend to vote in person.
An NBC News poll released Sunday found that 36 per cent of registered Democratic voters planned to vote in person during early voting, while another 36 per cent said they intended to vote in person on Election Day.
Among independent voters, 28 per cent said they planned to vote early in person, while 37 per cent said they would vote on Election Day.
The poll also found that 26 per cent of Republican voters planned to participate in early in-person voting, while 53 per cent said they intended to vote on Election Day.
Pollsters attributed part of the changing attitudes towards mail voting to President Donald Trump’s repeated, unfounded claims that the method facilitates election fraud and his criticism of the country’s mail-in ballot system.
