FBI: Polling location bomb threats in Georgia appear to originate in Russia
The FBI said it appeared Russia was behind discredited bomb threats made in Georgia and other states on Election Day.
“The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains,” the FBI said in a release Tuesday.
“None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far.”
The announcement came after Georgia officials had to evacuate two different polling locations.
“We pretty well dispelled that very quickly,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a press conference Tuesday morning. “But we want to make sure everything stays safe. … That was this morning, and law enforcement jumped right on that and we knew it was coming from a foreign state actor.”
Michigan and Wisconsin polling locations also received bomb threats.
The FBI did not immediately respond to request for comment about what additional states have logged bomb threats.
Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said on a Tuesday call with reporters that the U.S. is seeing “a greater scope and scale of foreign influence operations in 2024 than in other cycles,” calling Russia one of the most aggressive adversaries.
She also gave “tremendous credit to election officials who prepare for years, who put in place contingency plans, to make sure there is no loss of accessibility for voters.”
CISA and the FBI have encouraged the public to turn to local election officials for the most accurate information about voting procedures.
“Election integrity is among the FBI’s highest priorities. We will continue to work closely with our state and local law enforcement partners to respond to any threats to our elections and to protect our communities as Americans exercise their right to vote. As always, we urge the public to remain vigilant and report suspicious activity to state or local law enforcement,” the FBI said in its release.
Russia on Tuesday denied being behind the threats, calling the U.S. intelligence assessment “malicious slander.”
“We have noticed the statement of the U.S. intelligence services accusing our country of disseminating fabricated videos about electoral violations in the United States. We view these allegations as baseless. The Embassy has not received either any proof for these claims during its communications with U.S. officials, or any inquiries regarding the narrative being promoted by the press,” the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. said in a statement.
“This has become an unfortunate tradition: before every election, American authorities and media descend into hysteria about ‘Russian disinformation and interference,’ attempting to attribute any problems to external influence. When we ask our counterparts in the State Department and the White House about the presence of evidence in support of the accusations, we are only told something along the lines of ‘you know everything yourself.’ ”
Yash Roy contributed.
— Updated at 3:57 p.m.
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