Surveillance footage obtained by Fox News appears to show a man, later identified by the Montana Secretary of State’s Office as Laszlo Gendler, pulling on a drop box located in Glacier County, Montana, on Sunday. Gendler has known ties to the Democrat Party.
The election administrator for Glacier County, Crystal R. Cole, sent an email to the secretary’s office saying that Gendler looked “like he was tampering with the box,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The Federalist.
“Yesterday, on October 20th, at 10:25:05, Las[z]lo with the MT Dem Party was on camera tampering with the Box,” Cole’s email stated. “I did call him to ask him what his reasoning was, he stated ‘they’ sent him to the location to see how secure the box was. The MT Dem Party did not notify the Elections office in any way to state they would be sending someone to the Ballot Box to check how secure it was, so on camera it looks like he was tam[p]ering with the box.”
Richie Melby, communications director for the secretary’s office, told The Federalist that Cole alerted them to the issue and the state managed to confirm Gendler’s identity.
“Our Elections Director was pleased that the individual was not able to remove the ballot box from the wall, although the activity was obviously highly suspicious and concerning,” Melby said in a statement to The Federalist, adding that Gendler’s “name and details were turned over to Glacier County law enforcement.”
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) spokesman David Bergstein told Fox News that Gendler “was attempting to ensure a new ballot box was secured to the wall” but that his “actions were not in accordance with our procedures and out of an abundance of caution [Gendler] will no longer be doing this work moving forward.” Gendler was hired by the DSCC, according to records from OpenSecrets.
While Montana may not be a battleground for the presidential race, Democrats have poured millions into the Senate race to help incumbent Democrat Sen. Jon Tester, who faces a challenge from Republican Tim Sheehy, a veteran. A New York Times/Siena College poll shows Sheehy leading the race 52 to 44, with The Times saying Republicans “appear poised to take control of Senate.”
The apparent tampering incident in Glacier County isn’t the first time drop boxes have been the focus of election security concerns.
Just this month the Republican National Committee sued the City of Detroit after it allegedly deleted drop box surveillance footage, according to the lawsuit. The suit is asking for an injunction that would force the city to keep election drop box surveillance.
But security issues going beyond ballot drop boxes being tampered with — there are also allegations that they’ve been stuffed.
A judge overturned the results of a 2023 Bridgeport, Connecticut, mayoral primary race after evidence appeared to show affiliates of Democrat incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim “stuffing ballot boxes.” A new race was held in which Ganim was also declared the winner. The Connecticut secretary of state asked the State Elections Enforcement Commission in March, however, to look into “suspicious activity” and other “potential violations” in the do-over race. One “potential violation” included an unidentified man “wearing a hoodie to conceal his identity” seen on camera “dropping multiple ballots into drop boxes at two different locations,” according to the Hartford Courant.
Such incidents give cause for concern this election cycle, where key swing states like Wisconsin will once again use the insecure practice to retrieve ballots.
As my colleague Matt Kittle reported, drop box use “exploded in 2020” and was funded in large part by election administration grants that flooded local clerk offices. The money, which totaled more than $10 million, was part of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “Zuckbucks” initiative that fundamentally altered local election administration nationwide. As Kittle reported, “The brunt of the money went to swing states like Wisconsin and to Democrat strongholds such as Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the use of unmanned ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election violated state law, but the court reversed the decision this past July after the court’s majority shifted left.
