Residents press county after dozens of 'Official Election Mail' envelopes found discarded

Dozens of residents told the Delaware County Council on March 4 that they found postage‑paid envelopes marked "Official Election Mail" sliced open and discarded near a private dumpster in Woodland, and urged the county to preserve the materials ahead of the May primary.

At the meeting, Joy Schwartz said she and others recovered soaked envelopes from a shopping‑strip dumpster, dried samples and brought them to the solicitor. "They had been sliced across the bottom and emptied," she said, and handed samples to county staff.

Why it matters: residents and several speakers argued the outer postage‑paid envelopes form part of the audit trail for mail‑in ballot applications, including postmarks and mailing evidence that can tie an application to a ballot request. John Childs, who cited federal retention law, told the council that "when an application is received by mail, the envelope in which it arrived constitutes part of the record as received" and said federal law requires preservation for 22 months.

County staff and the solicitor disagreed over whether the outer business‑reply envelopes must be retained. The county representative said the envelopes are "not documents, papers, or records that are requisite to voting," and that the application form and other election records are the material the county must preserve. "These general business postage paid envelopes are not records that are requisite to voting that must be retained," county staff said at the meeting.

The council did not vote on a preservation order during the meeting. Speakers who raised the issue provided a written notice seeking clarification of the county’s retention policy and a request for confirmation that mail‑in ballot application envelopes for the May primary will be preserved for the 22‑month period specified in federal law.

What officials said next: the solicitor and county staff said they would look into how the envelopes wound up at the private lot and encouraged residents to send materials and questions by email for follow‑up. The county also said its vendors handle trash disposition and that the county would investigate the vendor chain of custody.

The next step is an expected written reply from county election officials to the formal notice seeking clarification of retention practices; residents said they will monitor the county’s response before certification of primary election records.

"Our purpose here is not to accuse anybody of anything but to ensure compliance before certification and to protect the integrity of election records moving forward," John Childs said at the meeting.

Ending: Council staff asked for samples and contact information and invited commenters to email questions; no formal preservation motion was recorded that evening.