There is no room for error this election season, so workers need to make sure ballots are secure in their work trucks. One employee is feeling the heat after accidentally losing hundreds of sealed ballots. 

Election worker fired after voter ballots fall out of truck 

Around 9:30 PM on Tuesday, October 29, hundreds of sealed voter ballots spilled out of a work truck into the middle of the road. 

The ballots were from an early voting site in Miami-Dade County, Florida. According to The Hill, the worker forgot to lock the back of the truck before driving away. 

As a result, one sealed bin and a sealed bag fell into the street, containing already voted ballots. The worker didn’t notice that the items fell into the road. 

However, an election supervisor shared that the ballots were already scanned and tabulated at the early polling station. 

But the ballots weren’t recovered until car passed them and decided to stop. The good samaritan immediately called the police. 

Once officers arrived, they collected the ballots and took them to the station. Election staff came to the department and verified that all of the seals were intact. There were no signs of damage or being tampered with. 

Then at the election headquarters, each ballot was carefully inspected again. All items were accounted for, and the seals were verified. 

Other drivers could have run them over, stopped to steal the ballots, or damaged them. Election officers thank the good samaritan who did the right thing by contacting local authorities. 

While the accident is attributed to human error, the election worker was immediately terminated. The Elections Department shared that while unintentional, the Elections Department has a zero tolerance for error and therefore the employee was terminated. 

We have an extremely close election coming up! Losing hundreds of ballots could have changed the outcome. Every vote matters.