Box of ballots found on street near Miami-Dade government building; elections worker fired after failing to lock back of truck

By Robbin Simmons, Jordan Segundo, Patrick Chalvire, Kevin Boulandier

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    CUTLER BAY, Florida (WSVN) — A box of ballots was found Monday evening in Cutler Bay, just feet away from the South Dade Government Center, according to a video posted on social media.

In the video, a man says he discovered the ballots at the intersection in front of the building, located at 10710 SW 211th St.

After collecting the ballots from the street, the man is seen in the video taking them to a nearby police department. Someone in the video could then be heard thanking him for his service and for returning the ballots.

In a statement sent to 7News, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County Elections Department said a sealed bag and a sealed bin with ballots from early voting fell from the back of a truck after an elections worker forgot to lock it.

The spokesperson went on to say that elections staff verified the seals and “nothing was tampered with or damaged.”

Once the items were taken to the elections headquarters, they were accounted for and all the seals were verified again, according to Miami-Dade elections officials.

Christina White, the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections, said the ballots are the paper record of the vote a voter casts on the machine.

“Those ballots were already tabulated so those actually become the backup record for the election. The results have already been captured. So I want any voter that voted at that location to know that their votes are already in the system. They will be uploaded on election night and they should feel confident in the overall system,” said White.

Though officials say the incident was unintentional, the employee was fired.

“One of our workers, who brings ballots back from the early voting location to election headquarters, they accidentally forgot to lock the back of the truck. It was an innocent mistake on the part of the employee. They felt horrible about it, but because in our field there is zero tolerance for error, that person was in fact terminated,” she said.

Voters headed to early voting locations on Tuesday said people have to trust in the system.

“We expect that everyone will do their job and everything and everybody will be counted for these elections,” said voter Orlando Puche.

Others praised the actions of the good Samaritan that found the boxes.

“The guy who did the right thing was awesome,” said another voter.

“If you did the right thing you know, you should be done something good for you, you know?” said a third voter.

“If he had not spoken up that would have been terrible , so I’m glad he did,” said Alina Cabrera. “I am so proud of this man who did what he had to do.”

It remains unclear how many ballots were inside the boxes and the specific early voting location that the ballots originated from.

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