Postal Service Worker Charged With Dumping Over 100 Absentee Ballots

A Postal Service worker accused of dumping more than 100 absentee ballots has been charged for willfully obstructing the passage of mail.

DeShawn Bojgere, 30, of Louisville, Kentucky, has been charged with the delay or destruction of mail after approximately 111 ballots from the Jefferson County Clerk's Office which had been being sent to voters to be filled out were found in a construction dumpster on Galene Drive.

According to the criminal complaint, Bojgere discarded the large quantity of mail some time between October 5 and October 15. The dumped mail also included 69 mixed class pieces of flat rate mail, 320 second class pieces of mail, and two national election campaign fliers from a political party in Florida.

All the mail was from a single route from one scheduled delivery day.

Bojgere is no longer employed by the U.S. Postal Service after admitting he was the one who dumped the mail in the construction dumpster.

"Especially in these times, Americans depend on the reliability and integrity of those that deliver the U.S. Mail," United States Attorney Russell Coleman said in a statement. "Conduct by Postal employees that violates that duty will result in swift federal prosecution."

Bojgere faces up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine if found guilty of the charges. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Chris Tieke and Tom Dyke and investigated by the United States Postal Service Office of the Inspector General.

The incident is one of a number of cases in which workers have been charged with destruction of mail in the run up to November's election.

Special Agent Scott Balfour, a spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, previously told Newsweek: "I will point out that the vast majority of the Postal Service's 630,000 employees are hard-working, trustworthy individuals who work around the clock to deliver the nation's mail, and incidents of this nature are exceedingly rare when put into that context."

The Jefferson County Clerk's Office said voters who have not received an absentee ballot by October 28 can still go to any polling site and vote in person.

"If you say 'I didn't get it,' they will send you where you need to go, you'll fill out an affidavit and they will hand you another ballot and what they will do at that time is the ballot that was scanned originally to you, they will cancel that ballot," Nore Ghibauldy, spokesperson for the Jefferson County Clerk's office, told Spectrum News.

The USPS has been contacted for further comment.