Russia blamed for bomb threats at polling sites in Georgia and other states (original) (raw)

Russia was behind false bomb threats in Georgia and other states that briefly closed polling stationsin some Democratic-leaning areas Tuesday, an escalation in tactics aimed at sowing fear and suppressing votes, federal and local officials said.

“The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains,” the agency said in a statement. “None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far.”

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly said in a briefing late Tuesday night that the bomb threats,while “outrageous,” did not keep anyone from voting or having their ballots counted. She described the episodes as a “good-news story for democracy,” in part because local officials had prepared for such disruptions in advance.

Easterly added that the attribution by state officials to Russia was not yet definitive.

While the FBI did not name the states targeted, local officials reported more than a dozen threats in Georgia alone, temporarily shutting down polling stations in Democratic-leaning and predominantly Black communities in the Atlanta area. Officials later confirmed that Russia-linked bomb threats were also received at polling places in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said several polling locations in Navajo County, home to many Native Americans, received hoax bomb threats. “We also have reason to believe, although I won’t get into specifics, that this comes from one of our foreign enemies, namely Russia,” said Fontes, a Democrat. Zach Stoebe, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for Arizona, said the Justice Department was investigating the threats but could not verify Russian ties.

Non-credible bomb threats that the FBI said were linked to Russia were called in to Michigan polling locations in Genesee, Saginaw, Washtenaw and Wayne counties, Michigan secretary of state spokeswoman Angela Benander confirmed to The Washington Post on Tuesday night. All four counties went for Joe Biden in 2020 and represent a mix of Democratic strongholds and major population centers in the crucial swing state.

In Wisconsin, the police in Madison received emails at 4 a.m. Tuesday claiming that there were bombs at polling sites and former polling sites, city spokesman Dylan Brogan said. The emails included letters from the Russian alphabet and appeared bogus, but police investigated to make sure there was no danger, Brogan said.

“There was zero disruption of voting whatsoever,” he said. “They were clearly trying to disrupt the election in some way, and they didn’t.”

Extended voting hours were authorized in Georgia and some other jurisdictions to offset time lost when polling stations were closed to assess the threats, and a lawsuit was filed in Arizona asking for an extension. It wasn’t clear whetherall the people unable to vote during the shutdowns were able to later return to cast their ballots.

Three of the five bomb threats in Fulton County targeted precincts in Union City and South Fulton — two predominantly Black communities southwest of Atlanta — while another was aimed at a precinct in Gwinnett County, one of the most rapidly diversifying areas of metro Atlanta and considered a bellwether county for the 2024 vote. Another threat was aimed at a polling place in Clayton County.

Later in the day, election officials in DeKalb County, a deep-blue county east of Atlanta, said they had received bomb threats at seven locations within an hour across five precincts. Police evacuated polling sites, including a church and community centers in Lithonia, Decatur, Chamblee and Tucker — all deeply diverse communities. “Every asset we have will be deployed to ensure that every citizen will have an opportunity to cast their ballot despite these bomb threats,” DeKalb County chief executive Michael Thurmond said in a statement.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, was the first to point the finger at Russia.

Some polling location officials said they were seeking court orders to extend their hours of operation to make up for the disruption.

The top elections officialat CISA, senior adviser Cait Conley,said the disruptions were not deemed a national threat to the orderly voting process.

Earlier Tuesday, the FBI attributed a video to Russia that falsely claimed that the bureau had warned voters to stay home because of the possibility of violence. It said a second video featured a fake FBI press release claiming that operators of five prisons conspired with a political party and rigged inmate voting.

On Sunday, a Russian operation put out a video with a fake whistleblower saying Arizona officials were conspiring to throw the election to Harris and calling for physical protests, the FBI said late Monday.

The new threats mark an escalation from recent videos falsely claiming voting fraud, and bear out U.S. warnings that Russia especially would seek to sow distrust and chaos during the election and its aftermath and could try to instigate violence.

With most voters having decided whom to support, officials said it made sense for Russia, whose disinformation efforts have centered on supporting former president Donald Trump, to shift toward provoking chaos around the voting and certification process instead.

“They likely realize they can’t really make people change behaviors at this polls,” said former CISA director Chris Krebs. “If chaos is the point, the most opportune window to create mischief is the post-November 5th pre-certification period.”

U.S. officials said the disruptions could get worse over the next two months.

“If voters are leaving polling places or not showing up because of law enforcement activity or general fear, that goes beyond this idea that Russia is just out there spreading partisan memes,” said Bret Schafer, senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

In the past few days, Germany accused Russia of calling in bomb threats to disrupt voting in closely watched elections in Moldova, which shares a border with Ukraine. A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said multiple polling places set up for Moldovans living abroad had been disrupted.

“This certainly feels like a new page in the Russian playbook, given that they were accused of doing the same thing in Moldova over the weekend,” Schafer said.

CISA senior adviser Conley said the government was not aware of a coordinated propaganda campaign to build on the bomb threats by claiming that it was an opportunity for vote-switching, but added that her agency “would not be surprised” by efforts to take advantage.

“We have seen the influx of narratives that have the potential and arguably the intention of inciting physical violence,” Conley said in a press briefing.

She said the Russian disinformation efforts, which have included paying social media stars and crafting websites that look like pages from The Washington Post, Fox News and others, are more extensive and sophisticated than in any previous election cycle. She also said threats to election officials were a major concern.

Conservative pundits on social media disputed the attribution to Russia and blamed Democrats.

“If you believe Russia did a bomb threat in Georgia — you probably believed it when the government told you masks work,” one wrote.

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Holly Bailey and Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.