A former Utah mail carrier dumped about 300 primary ballots in a church dumpster to "lighten his workload," federal prosecutors said.
According to a detention filing, former Utah postman Damon Matai Seei was charged with a single count of secretion, destruction, and delay of mail.
Prosecutors say Seei was covering a colleague's route in Eagle Mountain, Utah, on June 3 when he was "entrusted with delivering mail to at least 300 persons" in the area. That mail included advertisements and hundreds of ballots meant for voters in the state's June 23 primary election.
Postal Service records show Seei began his route at about 10:30 a.m. About an hour and a half later, he pulled his mail truck into a church parking lot that "was not a stop on his route" and parked beside a dumpster for roughly three minutes. He later admitted he stopped there to throw away mail, according to the filing.
"Because of Seei's actions, those voters never received these ballots," prosecutors wrote. "And some of these voters were not able to vote in the election."
The discarded ballots came to light after Eagle Mountain residents complained to Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson that their ballots never arrived. Davidson found "remarkably low" turnout in Utah House District 50 and eventually calculated that about 304 registered voters never got their ballots. Many of them had Postal Service notices saying the ballots were scheduled to arrive June 3.
In a written statement, Seei said he felt "overwhelmed" by a "heavier" than usual workload and decided to "get rid of advertisement mail," according to the filing. He said that he did not mean to discard the ballots and said that he is not a "very political person." He said he made a "poor decision" out of "frustration" and "laziness." He said during an interview that he wanted to "lighten his workload."
Prosecutors rejected the account, though. They noted that Seei admitted to setting the ballots aside at the start of his shift.
"The evidence does not suggest that Seei made any effort at all to deliver the approximately 300 mail-in ballots," they wrote.
The Justice Department is not seeking detention, however. Seei no longer works for the Postal Service and has "no identified criminal history."
Prosecutors said they had not yet notified the roughly 300 voters they consider victims.