A mail carrier for the United States Postal Service in Baker County, Georgia, escaped major harm when her Jeep delivery truck caught fire on Monday.
WAGA-TV claimed that stacks of mail, including parcels, letters, and maybe mail-in absentee votes, were burnt and destroyed due to the truck fire. A fire broke out on a rural road southwest of Albany.
Post offices in remote regions of the country sometimes rely on carriers using their own cars for delivery, which explains why the damaged mail, which may have included dozens of absentee votes, was in the postal carrier’s Jeep.
The Baker County Sheriff’s Office said that the Newton Post Office had records of the mail that was lost in the fire and urged residents to contact the Newton office if they had questions about missing mail.
While the lost mail and probably lost ballots are inconvenient circumstances, numerous Facebook commentators on a Baker County Sheriff’s Office post praised God that the postal carrier was unharmed despite the intensity of the fire that destroyed the vehicle.
“Thanking God she’s okay and the fire didn’t spread!!!!” one Facebook user wrote.
Given the chance that mail-in votes might have been damaged in the fire, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office responded swiftly to the news. The office of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger issued a statement on their involvement in assisting people who may have lost a mail-in ballot in a fire.
“A USPS truck, according to the election’s director down there, burned to a crisp. So, we’ve already had discussions with them,” Interim Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling said, according to WAGA-TV.
“There are 43 outstanding ballots in the county. We’re working with USPS to see if they have images of what might have been on that truck, to reissue them. Worst comes to worst, we’ll reissue the 43 ballots, or the county will reissue the 43 ballots, and first across the line for those voters will be the ballots that are accepted,” Sterling added.
The event occurred in the aftermath of unprecedented early voting in Georgia, with Sterling claiming that over 100,000 mail-in votes were received on Tuesday alone. An additional 124,000 people voted early in person.
Congratulations, Georgia voters! We've reached 1 MILLION cast votes. Election officials deserve our thanks for rising to the challenge & working hard to serve our communities. Early Voting will continue through Nov. 4th. The deadline to request a mail ballot is Friday! pic.twitter.com/eOKiuoMZP9
— GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (@GaSecofState) October 25, 2022
More on this story via The Western Journal:
According to NBC News, early voting across the country is exceeding expectations, and that’s especially true in Georgia. As of Oct. 26, according to Georgia Votes, 1,123,329 Georgia voters have already cast their vote, marking a 51 percent increase from the same time in the lead-up to the 2018 midterms.
Of those votes, 51 percent were registered Democrats, and 41 percent were registered Republicans. Another eight percent were marked “other.” CONTINUE READING…