Renton, WA— Our city is in the news this week for an unusual reason. A box of ballots was found here in February, and a state-level story has grown up around it. Because both the spot where the box was found and the county agency now reviewing it are in our city, here’s the grounded version.
In February, a man taking out trash behind a Renton strip mall spotted a box on the ground. Inside were about 360 ballots, most of them still sealed and unvoted. They were from elections held between 2022 and 2025. Most were King County ballots. A smaller number were for voters in Snohomish and Pierce counties.
The box stayed with the finder for about two months. Last week, he brought it to the Washington State Republican Party. On Friday, April 17, party chair Jim Walsh held a press conference at the party’s Bellevue office. He said the box “is proof” that Washington’s elections are not secure.
King County Elections, which is headquartered right here in Renton, says it has no record of anyone contacting the agency about the box before it reached the state party. A review is now underway to figure out how the ballots ended up behind a dumpster. The Washington Secretary of State’s office is also involved.
A few things are worth keeping in mind. The ballots were blank — no votes were in that box. The investigation will work to figure out how undelivered mail ended up at a strip mall. That is a different question from whether vote counting itself is secure. The claim that the discovery proves elections are insecure comes from Walsh. To show it, he would need to connect how the ballots got to the dumpster with what happens once filled-out ballots are returned and counted. That connection has not been made yet.
We will update this story when we learn what the review found. In the meantime, King County Elections (kingcounty.gov/elections) and the Washington Secretary of State’s office (sos.wa.gov) are the best places to go for official updates.
Disclosure: The author served as a certified election observer for the King County Democrats in 2022 and 2023.