Postal Service intercepts suspicious mailing headed to Sacramento election office
SACRAMENTO — An investigation is underway into a suspicious envelope that the U.S. Postal Service intercepted before reaching its destination at an election facility in Sacramento.
Sacramento County officials said federal and state agencies alerted the county Registrar of Voters on Wednesday that the suspicious mailing was headed to their office.
The California Secretary of State's office said the Postal Service also intercepted a similar envelope headed to a Los Angeles election facility.
The letter sent to the Sacramento office was sent as election workers were processing ballots from this week's local school board races. Sacramento County spokesperson Ken Casaris could not confirm what was in the letter.
Testing is underway to see whether there are any toxic chemicals inside the envelopes. There are concerns the two packages are connected to other mail sent to election offices in Georgia, Oregon and Washington state – some of which were laced with suspicious substances including fentanyl.
The county said a joint investigation into the matter was being conducted by the Postal Service and the FBI. The FBI said Thursday evening that it does not have any further comment on the matter, but released a statement saying, in part:
"The public can be assured that law enforcement will continue to keep the public's safety as its top priority. The FBI would also like to remind everyone to exercise care in handling mail, especially from unrecognized senders. If you see something suspicious, please contact law enforcement immediately."
Jeffrey Harp, a retired FBI Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Office, says the investigation will start with the envelopes themselves.
"I think what the bureau will focus on mostly is what does the evidence tell them? Is there DNA? Are there fingerprints? Those are kind of the starting point for these things," Harp said. "There's a whole lot of investigation that gets done, sort of, in the intricate parts of the envelope."
This targeting of election workers comes in the lead-up to a presidential election year. UCLA politics professor Zev Yaroslavsky says voter intimidation is on the rise.
"I think the motivation here is to intimidate people who are in the election monitoring business," Yaroslavsky said.