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Several ballots and pieces of mail were stolen in Emerald Hills sometime between Oct. 4 and Oct. 6, according to residents and county officials.
“The San Mateo County Registration and Elections Division was notified by five voters in the Emerald Hills neighborhood of Redwood City of possible mailbox thefts, during which their Vote by Mail ballots may have been stolen. Each of these voters requested that a replacement ballot be issued,” Mark Church, San Mateo County chief elections officer and assessor-county clerk-recorder, said in an email.
An Emerald Hills resident, who asked not to be named, said she found her mailbox – and many of her neighbors’ mailboxes – open and empty on Monday after her ballot was delivered on Saturday.
“It seems crazy that someone went out of their way to steal mail with ballots,” the resident said. She saw her ballot was supposed to arrive Saturday through the U.S. Post Office’s Informed Delivery service which previews what mail is set to arrive at an address. The resident said all of her mail was missing, not just the ballot.
Church says it’s not uncommon for ballots to go missing. “Requests for replacement ballots are common in every election and typically result from ballots that are lost, damaged or spoiled,” he said. Church also said that when a replacement ballot is requested, the original ballot is automatically voided.
According to Church, replacement ballot requests for the November 2025 Special Election are lower than normal. The Elections Office received 15 replacement ballot requests in the first week of the special election compared to 91 in the first week of the November 2024 Presidential General Election.
The San Mateo County Elections Office started mailing ballots in early October for the statewide special election on Nov. 4, 2025.
“We’ve never really seen ballots targeted,” said Matthew Norfleet, a postal inspector with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which investigates mail theft and other mail-related crimes. Norfleet said thieves typically take all contents from a mailbox and discard items without monetary value, such as catalogs, junk mail and ballots.
“(Ballots) are an example of the kind of mail that we find discarded during election season. We’ll sometimes find a bunch of ballots that are dumped in the side of the road or even put back in the mail stream because somebody stole mail and took out all the things they can make money with,” Norfleet added.
“Some people never think to report (mail theft) to us. I encourage your readers to report that to postal inspectors, either online, usps.gov, or through our number (877) 876-2455,” Norfleet said.
Church said his office does not report mail theft to USPIS or law enforcement but encourages affected residents to report any suspected theft or vandalism to law enforcement in their area.
Residents can track their ballots and ensure they are received at smcacre.gov/elections/track-your-ballot.
Mail in ballots are ripe to fraud. They should be eliminated. Exercise your civic duty, go to the polls in person. Every business and government Agency should be closed on election day until the polls close, and there should be enough polling places with in person paper ballots to accomodate all the people to be processed efficiently with effective poll watchers. Any fraud should be met with the harshest possible punishment.
Impossible. Democrats have repeatedly assured us that this NEVER happens. This article must be incorrect.
We received our mail-in ballots in the same delivery as end-of-quarter statements from investment firms. This could be targeted at financial/ID theft and have nothing to do with the ballots.
It’s misleading to show a photo of a *dropbox* when the subject of the story is about *mail-in ballots.* Appreciate the article, goes to show how important it is to VOTE YES ON PROP 50! Thank you for reporting this story.