Mail-In ballots should get as much protection as California lottery tickets, according to a candidate for Congress who is trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Adam Schiff.
“Lottery tickets get armed guards to make sure they aren't stolen,” said Ronda Kennedy, a Republican. “They're locked up. But when it comes to our mail-in ballots, we just drop them in the mail. Securing our ballots is part of election integrity.”
Kennedy, who works as an attorney, was responding to a report that mail-In ballots were found abandoned on a Los Angeles street last week by a woman walking her dog.
“This they will blame on the Post Office saying they weren't secure but they should ensure that our ballots are secure,” she said.
The woman, identified in the Epoch Times as Christina Repaci, allegedly found 104 unopened mail-in ballots in a box on an East Hollywood sidewalk but when she called the police, she was told to call the U.S. Postal Service.
“You would think the police would have shown up immediately,” Kennedy told the Southern California Record. “If she had found 10 rolls or a hundred rolls of lottery tickets laying on the sidewalk, I bet the police would have responded in a hurry. Local police need to be involved in making sure that there is integrity in our elections.”
As previously reported, the U.S. Postal Service and Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office are investigating the incident, which occurred in the state's 30th congressional district, which spans Burbank, Glendale, Hollywood, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, West Hollywood, Acton, Sunland-Tujunga and Sun Valley.
“The fact that this happened in my district where I'm running against Adam Schiff is terrifying and disheartening,” Kennedy said. “Securing ballots means making sure that the ballots reach the proper person that the ballot is actually addressed to because if anybody else picked up those ballots, that’s 104 free ballots.”
Kennedy is among the plaintiffs who sued various county election officials on Jan. 4, 2021, alleging in their lawsuit that California’s voting practices are unconstitutional.
Kennedy and the Election Integrity Project (EIP) asked U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr. to issue an order requiring state officials to decertify the November 2020 election results and allow an inspection of all voting machines by subject matter experts.
The complaint was dismissed in June 2021. Birotte, appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show that injury was concrete and particularized. Kennedy and EIP appealed.
“I'm in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals alleging election fraud for the 2020 election and discrimination because they are disenfranchising black voters by allowing mail-in ballot voters to vote after the polls close,” Kennedy added.