Utah postal worker indicted for allegedly throwing away 300 mail-in ballots

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — A Utah postal worker has been indicted for allegedly throwing away 300 mail-in ballots ahead of Utah’s June primary election.

Earlier this month, Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson said that there were reports from over 300 registered voters who never received their ballots ahead of June’s primary election. The investigation was forwarded to the DOJ, who announced Tuesday that a federal grand jury indicted a Utah postal worker for allegedly throwing away hundreds of mail-in ballots in Utah County.

This is part of a larger push from the DOJ to crack down on voting law compliance in all 50 states, with a particular focus on non-citizens being registered to vote.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah Melissa Holyoak said that last week, a Utah federal grand jury indicted 34-year-old Damon Seei of Payson for unlawful secretion, destruction, and delay of mail, for illegally disposing of mail-in ballots that were to be delivered to voters for the June primary election.

U.S. Marshals arrested Seei Tuesday morning, and he made his initial appearance in federal court.

The indictment alleges that on June 3, Seei, who worked as a federal postal worker, discarded over 300 ballots by throwing them into a dumpster in a church parking lot, even though they were clearly marked as ballots and he knew what they were. Holyoak said that Seei also threw away other mail in addition to the ballots.

“Seei betrayed the public’s trust when he allegedly threw hundreds of ballots in the trash,” Holyoak said. “As Americans, we have certain freedoms and rights, and one of those fundamental rights is the right to vote, but when defendant allegedly threw those ballots into a parking lot dumpster, those citizens’ right to vote was also thrown away.”

After those ballots were thrown away, voters complained to Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson, and, using county databases, Davidson determined that voter participation in the area where the ballots were thrown away was remarkably low.

This indictment comes two weeks after Lt. Governor Diedre Henderson received a letter from the DOJ saying that she is under investigation over Utah’s voter information and election compliance. The DOJ has been asking for Utah’s private voter information since July 2025. At that time, Utah Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson provided the DOJ with Utah’s publicly available voter list and data about how many voters were removed over the past two years.

Recently, Henderson joined 38 current and former state and local election officials from 10 states in filing an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case on the issue of restricting mail in voting for the 2026 midterm elections. While that brief doesn’t take a position on the rule’s constitutionality, it does argue that the rule should not go into effect for the 2026 midterms because it would cause problems in actually running the election.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said that although the Postal Service’s new regulations on mail-in ballots will not go into effect for November’s election, the Trump administration will continue taking “aggressive” actions for election integrity, including posting hundreds of election monitors throughout the country.

“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.”

McCotter stated that in the last four weeks, the DOJ has charged 32 non-citizens with unlawful voting and registration offenses.

This investigation was conducted by the DOJ, the Office of the Inspector General of the Postal Service, and Homeland Security Investigations.