Georgia’sSecretary of State said polling centers were sent bomb threats of “Russian origin” on Election Day.
Two polling stations had been evacuated in Union City and Fulton County due to the threats on Tuesday. Secretary Brad Raffensperger said officials were investigating but they do not believe they were viable.
“We’ve heard some threats that were of Russian origin,” he said during a press conference on Tuesday morning. “I don’t know how to describe that that’s viable, we don’t think they are, but in the interest of public safety, you always check that out.
“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 also referenced the distributed denial-of-service attack – also known as a DDoS attack – on Georgia’s state website last month. The attack targeted the page that allows voters to request absentee ballots.
“Just like we had the DDoS attack on Monday, October 14,” Raffensperger added. “42,000 pings denial of service from Russians. So we added that interface: ‘I am a human, not a robot.’”
Election officials in Cobb County, Georgia’s third-largest county, mailed more than 3,000 absentee ballots late, sending them out late last week. They must arrive in Georgia by the end of Election Day to be counted.
“We want to maintain voter trust by being transparent about the situation,” county Board of Elections Chairwoman Tori Silas said in a statement on Thursday. “We are taking every possible step to get these ballots to the voters who requested them.”
Georgia is one of seven key swing states that will determine the outcome of the presidential election.
The latest New York Times/Siena College poll shows the two candidates are neck-and-neck in all swing states. Kamala Harris is just one point ahead of Donald Trump in the Peach State, which is well within the margin of error.
Trump currently faces charges of election interference in Fulton County, Georgia alongside his former attorney Rudy Giuliani and several others after falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen. Trump had his infamous booking photo taken in Georgia, which has proven to be a massive fundraising machine for his campaign.
Giuliani was already found guilty of defaming two election workers in Georgia: Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss.
Election workers spent much of this year preparing for Election Day. In Cobb County, the Board of Commissioners even approved funding for panic buttons in August to ensure election workers can call for help if needed while monitoring the polls.
