MIAMI — Containers with Miami-Dade ballots were found on the side of a road overnight after they fell out of a county truck, the Elections Department confirmed Tuesday.

“The worker forgot to lock the back of the truck and as they drove off, one sealed bin and one sealed bag fell out,” Christina White, the county’s elections supervisor, said Tuesday morning.

She said the containers remained sealed and that the ballots inside had already been scanned and tabulated at the South Dade Regional Library’s early-voting site on Monday. A passing driver retrieved the crate and the satchel with the ballots on a road near Florida’s Turnpike in Cutler Bay, according to video posted by Only in Dade.

The video showed dashcam footage of the parcels on the road on what they described as Exit 11 of Florida’s Turnpike, as well as cellphone footage the passengers captured of the containers with county barcodes and paperwork used to track paper ballots. They drove the items to a county police station.

“Upon arrival at the police department, Election staff verified all seals were intact and nothing was tampered with or damaged,” White said in a text message.

White said she did not know how many ballots were in the containers. An Elections spokesperson said the department had not opened the containers, which remained sealed after being found by the passing driver.

“Thankfully, this was observed in real time by upstanding citizens who did the right thing and turned the bin and bag into the police department,” White said.

She said the incident happened sometime between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. and that the county worker driving the truck did not immediately stop, leaving the ballots to be found by the passersby.

“While unintentional, the Elections Department has zero tolerance for error and therefore the employee was terminated,” she said.

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(Miami Herald staff writer David Goodhue contributed to this report.)

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