Man Caught on Video Stealing Mail, Voting Ballots From California Mailboxes

Video captured a man stealing absentee ballots while walking through a neighborhood in Escondido, California, a local news outlet reported.

Surveillance cameras from David Sprouse, a local resident, captured a man stealing mail from his home and houses nearby last week, Fox 5 San Diego reported.

“It was a younger looking man, [who] happened to come down the sidewalk. He was wearing a ball cap, face mask, gloves. He carefully opened up our mailbox and took out all of our mail,” Sprouse told Fox 5.

The thief then continued to search through the mail of additional houses, Sprouse said.

No arrests have been made as of Thursday evening, Fox 5 reported.

Sprouse said that he didn’t realize his mail had been tampered with until the next morning, and that this was the first time in at least a decade that somebody had stolen his mail.

“There are two offenses going on here,” San Diego County Registrar of Voters Michael Vu told the local outlet. “Number one, you cannot steal anyone’s mail. That’s already a crime under the laws of the U.S. Postal Service. But then this is a federal election [crime] as well.”

Though widespread voter fraud is rare, experts say, the surge in mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic has raised logistical concerns and fears that the results of the presidential election may be delayed since they take longer to tally.

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