Utah postal worker charged with dumping mail ballots

A Utah postal worker accused of throwing more than 300 mail-in ballots into a dumpster shortly before the state’s June primary has pleaded not guilty to a federal mail charge, Justice Department officials said Tuesday.

Damon Matai Seei, 34, was arrested Tuesday and appeared in federal court in Salt Lake City for arraignment, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said at a news conference. Prosecutors charged him with destruction and delay of mail. His next court date is Nov. 30, NBC News reported.

Officials said Seei was delivering mail in Eagle Mountain, Utah, when he dumped the ballots and other mail in a dumpster in a church parking lot not long after starting his route. Melissa Holyoak, the U.S. attorney for Utah, said Seei “immediately took the ballots and set them aside” within 90 minutes of beginning his shift and “did not deliver a single one.”

According to prosecutors, Seei told investigators he had no political agenda. Court records cited by CBS News said he “admitted in an interview that he threw away the mail because he wanted to ‘lighten his workload’ so he could presumably go home earlier.” NBC News reported that a government memo said Seei wanted to toss advertisements after feeling overwhelmed and claimed he made a “poor decision” out of “frustration” and “laziness.” The memo said he did not intend to throw away ballots.

Holyoak said Seei also discarded other mail. NBC News reported that he is no longer with the U.S. Postal Service and that it was not yet clear whether the affected voters were eventually able to cast ballots.

The ballots were being sent to voters for Utah’s June 23 primary, in which both Democrats and Republicans were on the ballot. Mail voting is widely used in Utah. Holyoak said roughly 95% of voters in the state vote by mail, while CBS News reported that most Utah voters cast ballots by mail and that nearly a third of voters nationwide use mail-in ballots.

The investigation remains ongoing, officials said.

“Election integrity, which includes ballot integrity, by the way, should be a nonpartisan issue,” McCotter said. “The right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election, but the actions of even one malicious actor on the ground can fatally undercut that security.”

McCotter said the Justice Department has more cases in the works but did not provide details or a timeline, NBC News reported. He said the department had charged 70 voter-fraud-related cases during President Donald Trump’s second term. More than 170 million people are registered to vote in the United States, according to NBC News.

The case comes as the Trump administration has sought new restrictions and scrutiny for mail-in ballots, arguing the measures are needed to prevent fraud. Democratic-led states have warned that such restrictions could inhibit voting and disrupt election systems. Lower courts blocked the administration’s policy, and the Supreme Court left that block in place earlier this month.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” earlier this month that the state’s mail-in ballot system has “tremendous security measures in place, and we’re adding more all of the time.”