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Several polling stations in the swing state of Georgia closed temporarily on Tuesday to investigate bomb threats, as the FBI warned of similar threats from “Russian email domains” at voting sites across the US.
The incidents are the latest that have threatened to disrupt an election campaign already marred by threats and violent attacks, including two attempts on the life of Republican candidate Donald Trump.
They come amid heightened security at polling stations in Georgia and elsewhere, with workers handed panic buttons and training on how to respond to poison attacks in anticipation of outbreaks of violence.
At least seven precincts were searched by law enforcement, Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger told reporters, although authorities concluded that the threats were unsubstantiated.
Precincts in Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties, which closed for several minutes while the probes were under way, are expected to stay open beyond the 7pm deadline to compensate for the interruptions.
Raffensperger, who achieved national fame for refusing Trump’s request that he “find 11,780 votes” in the aftermath of the 2020 election, declined to provide more details on the threats, but said his office had “identified the source and it was from Russia”.
“They are up to mischief it seems, and they don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election, and they think they can get us to fight among ourselves,” he said.
The warning was followed by a statement from the FBI, which said it was “aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states”, although none had “been determined to be credible thus far”.
Law enforcement in the area of Portland, Oregon were also investigating threats to polling stations on Tuesday morning, according to local officials.
The threats in Georgia do not seem to have had a dampening effect on turnout.
Some 700,000 residents had cast their vote by 2:30pm eastern time on Tuesday, bringing the projected number of voters on the day to more than 1.2mn. When combined with the more than 4mn votes cast during Georgia’s early voting period, the number puts the state course for a higher turnout than in 2020, when Joe Biden narrowly clinched the state by fewer than 12,000 votes.
Georgia has been the subject of attempts at foreign interference. Last week, US intelligence officials said a viral video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant voting illegally in Georgia was a fake created by “Russian actors”, among several pieces of digital election content that authorities have flagged as misinformation in the lead-up to the election.
A man who posted that clip on X told CNN on Tuesday that he had been paid by Russian individuals to do so.
Other states have taken steps to head off threats of violence on election day. Election workers in Phoenix, which is in the swing state of Arizona, will be guarded by rooftop snipers and surveillance drones as they begin tabulating votes, part of a security build-up designed to prevent the violent threats that marked the aftermath of the 2020 presidential contest.
The nation’s capital, Washington, has also been on alert. Earlier, police arrested a man at the US Capitol complex who they said was in possession of a “torch and flare gun”.
Additional reporting by Christopher Grimes in Phoenix and Maxine Kelly in London
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