Sierra Madre man discovers stack of mail-in ballots in storm drain

A Sierra Madre man says he found a stack of election ballots stuffed inside a storm drain, and he's now speaking out about the discovery.

Jay Senese was doing some landscape work at his home Saturday when saw something strange in the storm drain next to his house: nearly a dozen mail-in ballots. He said he got on his hands and knees and started scooping them out and noticed the addresses were from his Arcadia neighbors a block away.

"We're trained here to keep stuff out of the storm drain... I pull out a bunch of junk mail and Ralphs ads and these ballots were mixed in with the junk mail," Senese said. "Of course, they catch my attention because we're seeing on TV about all of the care being taken to prevent fraud and misuse of ballots. It seemed a strange place for ballots to be."

He said he tried to return them to the nearby post office but they were already closed.

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His guess is someone went around the neighborhood opening up the mailboxes and emptying them. What the thieves didn't want, they dumped in the storm drain.

Senese shared with Eyewitness News that he doesn't receive a lot of mail. He said, for him, its safer.

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"I'm one of those people who's got almost everything coming in paperless. I don't get a lot of personal mail," Senese said. "The only thing I get these days... might be a replacement credit card or something."

If you haven't received your mail-in ballot and you believe it may be lost or even stolen, the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder's website allows you to request a replacement by filling out a form online. You can only do this once.

And according to the website, it will not change your registration status.

Senese said he plans on going to the post office this afternoon to return the ballots he found.

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