DOJ charges Utah postal worker for allegedly dumping mail ballots in trash

A U.S. Postal Service letter carrier in Utah has been charged with throwing out more than 300 ballots that were being sent to voters for the state's June primary, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said during a news conference that 34-year-old Damon Matai Seei was arrested Tuesday and appeared in federal court in Salt Lake City to be arraigned.

Seei entered a not guilty plea on Tuesday. The Associated Press has reached out to his attorney for comment.

McCotter said Seei was delivering mail in Eagle Mountain, Utah, when he threw the ballots and other mail into a dumpster in a church parking lot not long after his shift started.

Melissa Holyoak, the U.S. attorney for Utah, told reporters Seei "immediately took the ballots and set them aside" within 90 minutes of starting his shift, and "did not deliver a single one."

Asked about Seei's motive, Holyoak said he indicated to authorities that there was no political agenda.

In court records , prosecutors said Seei "admitted in an interview that he threw away the mail because he wanted to 'lighten his workload' so he could presumably go home earlier."

"Election integrity, which includes ballot integrity, by the way, should be a nonpartisan issue," McCotter said. "The right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election, but the actions of even one malicious actor on the ground can fatally undercut that security."

Most voters in Utah cast ballots by mail. Nationwide, nearly a third of voters use mail-in ballots.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, told "Face the Nation" earlier this month the state's mail-in ballot system has "tremendous security measures in place, and we're adding more all of the time."

President Trump has pushed for restrictions on mail-in ballots, alleging the increasingly common voting method is rife with fraud, though officials have not produced evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Under Mr. Trump's direction, the Postal Service had sought to add new layers of scrutiny for mail-in ballots during the midterm elections. His administration has said the rules were warranted to prevent fraud, though many Democratic states warned the restrictions could inhibit voting and upend election systems immediately before the midterms.

The new policy was blocked by lower courts, and earlier this month, the Supreme Court left the block in place .