Voting nationwide has been mostly orderly, despite non-credible bomb threats from Russian origin
Several bomb threats at a few Michigan and Georgia polling places caused delays in the vote as security officials cleared the locations.
The threats “appear to originate from Russian email domains,” the FBI said midday Tuesday. “None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far.”
Wisconsin also received threats apparently aimed at disrupting voting, a U.S. official said. In addition, there were “unsubstantiated” bomb threats made to four locations in Navajo County, Arizona, and state officials have “reason to believe” that the threats originated in Russia, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said Tuesday afternoon.
Fifteen polling locations in a “handful” of Georgia counties stayed open past 7 p.m. ET, including a dozen because of the bomb threats.
“We’ve heard some threats that were of Russian origin. I don’t know how to describe that that’s viable – we don’t think they are, but in the interest of public safety, we always check that out, and we’ll just continue to be very responsible when we hear about stuff like that,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “We identified the source, and it was from Russia.”
“They’re up to mischief, it seems, and they don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election,” he added. “Anything that can get us to fight amongst ourselves - they can count that as a victory.”
Raffensperger, a Republican, did not elaborate on how exactly state officials determined the bomb threats came from Russia.
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The non-credible threats to polling locations in Georgia and Michigan were the most significant issues thus far.
In Union City, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, there were several non-credible bomb threats that caused the temporary closure of two polling locations, according to Nadine Williams, Fulton County Registration and Elections Director.
A voting location housing two polling precincts in Gwinnett County, Georgia, was also evacuated for about an hour because of what police call a bomb threat, according to the Gwinnett County Police Department.
Voting was also temporarily suspended at five polling places in DeKalb County, Georgia, due to bomb threats as police performed sweeps at those locations.
Michigan authorities also received threats to polling locations initially deemed “serious in nature” but found not to be credible after an investigation by law enforcement, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told CNN.
The threats in Michigan and Wisconsin were also sourced to Russians, a U.S. official said.
