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Officials say Russia is behind polling place bomb threat hoaxes

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

That echoed an earlier statement from Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Voting at two sites in majority-Black areas of Georgia's Fulton County were briefly disrupted, and elections officials are seeking to extend voting hours.

"It's really what their whole motive is, is to try and destabilize America," Raffensperger said during a press briefing. "They probably need better leadership and need a better direction, but America is a great country, and we just have a great economic opportunity here. So I'm just really grateful I'm an American, and I'm not from Russia."

U.S. intelligence officials have said Russia continues to try to meddle in U.S. elections.

Agencies released a joint statement yesterday that read, in part: The “IC [intelligence community] has been observing foreign adversaries, particularly Russia, conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans. The IC expects these activities will intensify through election day and in the coming weeks, and that foreign influence narratives will focus on swing states.”

The FBI didn’t include any specific locations in its statement, or offer more details about how it determined threats weren’t “credible.”

As of noon, Raffensperger said more than half a million Georgians already cast their ballots today, setting up the state to potentially surpass 2020 turnout of roughly 5 million total votes.

Georgia's elections are running smoothly after several election cycles plagued by glitches and long lines. The average wait time across the state is about two minutes and the average time to check in a voter is under a minute, Raffensperger said.

He also said the 4 million votes cast before Election Day should be reported by 8 p.m. ET.

Copyright 2024 NPR

Stephen Fowler
Stephen Fowler is a political reporter with NPR's Washington Desk and will be covering the 2024 election based in the South. Before joining NPR, he spent more than seven years at Georgia Public Broadcasting as its political reporter and host of the Battleground: Ballot Box podcast, which covered voting rights and legal fallout from the 2020 presidential election, the evolution of the Republican Party and other changes driving Georgia's growing prominence in American politics. His reporting has appeared everywhere from the Center for Public Integrity and the Columbia Journalism Review to the PBS NewsHour and ProPublica.