Thieves swipe Bay Area mail-in ballots as questions swirl about vote count
By Ross O'Keefe
Published June 5, 2026, 11:03 a.m. ET
Thieves snatched a batch of mail-in ballots in the Bay Area earlier this week as California’s slow vote count faces intense scrutiny days after Tuesday’ slowly counts votes in the June 2 primary’s primary elections.
It’s unclear from where the mail was stolen, but investigators believe it could have been from a blue collection box or a community mailbox.
NBC Bay Area
The unopened ballots were delivered to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters in San Jose after being recovered from bins of stolen mail at a Grocery Outlet store in Morgan Hill, the Postal Inspection Service said.
“It was about 29 ballots,” Matt Moreles of Registrar of Voters told NBC Bay Area. “They were all sealed inside their return envelopes. So we were able to signature check them and verified they were valid and then we did count them.”
The store contained multiple bins of stolen mail, including the unopened ballots.
“Mail thieves are looking for financial instruments that they can get out of the mail,” inspector Matthew Norfleet told the outlet. “And sometimes they pick up some election mail. There was no reason to think the election-related mail was targeted. If anything it was left behind.”
