Nicholas Beauchene is accused of dumping 1,875 pieces of first class mail in two dumpsters.
A New Jersey postal carrier has been charged by the Department of Justice for discarding hundreds of pieces of first class mail in dumpsters, including ballots for the November 3rd election.
According to a DOJ statement, Nicholas Beauchene, 26, is accused of dumping 1,875 pieces of mail in two dumpsters on two different days, during two different mail routes in North Arlington and West Orange. The mail was recovered between Oct. 2 and Oct. 5, The Hill reports. A local resident had been tossing his own trash when he discovered dozens of ballots in the dumpster in North Arlington (98 ballots to be exact), and he immediately called police.
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“At first it looked like junk mail circulars and things like that, and then I flipped over a piece and I saw something that said address correction and all that kind of thing,” Howard Dinger said, adding that he flipped through “a few more pages I saw the ballots on it, and at that point I knew it was serious,” he told CBS New York.
“To have that all go in the trash like that was, in my mind, really ridiculous. The ballots are the ballots. The election is the election. It is what it is. But these people have legal notices and checks and God knows what they’re expecting,” Dinger said.
The dumpster in West Orange reportedly had hundreds of first class mail items and one general election ballot. All of the mail from both dumpsters was eventually delivered.
Beauchene, who has worked for the Postal Service since July, has been charged with one count of delay of mail and one of obstruction of mail. He faces up to five years and six months in prison if found guilty, and a $255,000 fine.
Read More: Rejected absentee ballots higher for minority voters, study finds
Federal prosecutors have stated that his actions were politically motivated.
Beauchene’s arrest comes amid President Donald Trump’s ongoing allegations that mail-in voting will lead to widespread voter fraud, despite there being no evidence to support the claim, theGRIO previously reported,
Senior intelligence officials said in August that there is no evidence supporting Trump’s warnings that November’s election will be marred by foreign interference or massive fraud due to the likelihood of increased absentee voting.
“We have no information or intelligence that any nation or state actor is engaging in any kind of activity to undermine any part of the mail-in vote or ballots,” an unnamed senior official told assembled media.
The president has routinely said that mail-in voting will be subject to widespread fraud. However, top U.S. officials, state employees and other voting experts have continuously refuted the claim.
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The post New Jersey postal worker arrested for allegedly tossing ballots, mail appeared first on TheGrio.
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