Voting was halted and polling stations across the US were evacuated on Election Day, after a slew of hoax bomb threats designed to “ensue chaos” were reported.
The FBI said it was aware of reports of bomb threats at polling locations in several states – including the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan – and said many of them appeared to originate from Russian email domains.
Some 32 threats were received in Fulton County, Georgia, alone – causing two polling stations to close.
Later, authorities in DeKalb County, Georgia, said that five centers had been temporarily closed “as a precautionary measure for the safety of voters and poll workers,” while bomb sweeps took place. The DeKalb County Law Department said it would seek an emergency order extending the voting times at the affected polling locations.
Georgia’s Secretary of StateBrad Raffensperger also confirmed that the threats were of “Russian origin” but that they were not believed to be viable.
“We’ll just continue to be very responsible when we hear about stuff like that. We’ve identified the source and it was from Russia,” Raffensperger told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday morning.
Four bomb threats also were reported at three voting sites in Navajo County, Arizona, according to officials. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told reporters that the motive behind the threats were “to ensue chaos, not to impact any political outcome.”
“We don’t see anything in the pattern or distribution that would make us think this was to effect any political change but we do believe… to get us to rattle in our boots is the reason that they’re doing this,” he said.
In Pennsylvania, Chester County Commissioner Josh Maxwell confirmed that a polling station in the area had also been evacuated due to a bomb threat.
“There was a bomb threat to the Government Services Center in West Chester, PA. It’s being evacuated. Voter Services is located there, and in-person ballots are delivered after 8 pm. Mail-in ballots are canvassed and tabulated at a different location,” Maxwell said, adding that there were no reported injuries.
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein later confirmed that there had been “concerns at about 10 polling places” in the state.
Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a former judge-turned-convicted felon was arrested and charged after threatening to burn down a polling station in upstate on Election Day. Paul Lamson was charged with making a terroristic threat on Tuesday morning after a failed attempt to vote. According to authorities, the incident occurred just after 6:30 a.m. in Fowler, New York, where Lamson, a convicted felon, tried to vote but was unable to, since he hadn’t re-registered after he had been released from prison.
“He became irate and started making threatening remarks such as burning the place down and returning with a firearm” before fleeing the scene, according to New York State Police. A search ensued and state police took Lamson into custody without incident.
Police also arrested a man in Washington, DC, after he showed up to the visitors’ center of the US Capitol with a torch and a flare gun, smelling like fuel.
US Capitol Police said the man was in the process of going through security at the Capitol Visitor Center at around midday when officers discovered the torch and flare gun in his jacket.
Officers also found bottles that appeared to have fuel residue inside his backpack and one officer noticed there was a faint odor of gasoline or some type of accelerant on the man, US Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger said.
That odor became much stronger when they opened the backpack, he said. Officers arrested the suspect, a 28-year-old Michigan man, but his name or possible motive are yet to be released.
In addition to Election Day chaos, on Monday, a Republican candidate for the Indiana House of Representatives was arrested after being accused of violating a protection order.
Jim Schenke, 57, a delegate for the state’s 26th House district, was booked into Tippecanoe County Jail after police received a complaint late that he had allegedly contacted an individual on Facebook who has a protection order against him, the Lafayette Journal and Courier reported