Across Virginia, voters are putting their ballots in drop boxes.
The next time you see a ballot drop box, take a moment to read the language on the side of it.
"It does have language on it that indicates tampering with the drop box is a felony," says Alexandria Registrar Angie Maniglia Turner, who adds ballot drop boxes in Virginia have several layers of security.
"Those are under video surveillance 24 hours a day. Those have to be emptied every 24 hours. So, on a daily basis."
In Charlottesville, election officials empty their drop box several times a day. And the video surveillance remains available well after the election.
"We keep it on a retention period of actually two years. So that way we could go back, review anything if something were to happen, we would have live feed and live footage of what actually is happening in that moment," says general registrar Taylor Yowell. "It would also give us an opportunity to get in contact and track down the voters who had cast their ballots through the drop box as well."
Election officials in Oregon and Washington are responding to incidents where ballots inside drop boxes were set on fire. So far, nothing like that has happened at any of Virginia's drop boxes.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
