The Daily Fuckup

Bomb threats reported at polling places and election-related offices on Nov. 5, 2024, briefly interrupted voting and ballot processing in several battleground states. In some locations, officials cleared buildings, shifted voters, or paused work while law enforcement checked the scenes.

The FBI said the threats it was tracking were not credible. In a statement the agency also said many appeared to originate from Russian email domains, but it did not publicly attribute the hoaxes to Russia as a proven actor.

Officials described disruptions in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, though the impact varied sharply from place to place. In some spots, election workers kept operating after a short delay. In others, officials evacuated buildings or moved people to alternate locations while they sorted out the threat.

Pennsylvania saw one of the more notable procedural responses, with a judge authorizing extra time at a ballot-counting site in Clearfield County after a threat prompted disruption there. Arizona officials said threats reached multiple polling places in Navajo County. Georgia officials also reported threats in metro Atlanta, while election officials in Michigan and Wisconsin said they were dealing with similar calls and emails.

The episode did not produce evidence of a credible attack, but it still forced local election workers to spend time on evacuation, screening and rerouting voters instead of administering the vote. That is the point of a bomb threat, even a fake one: to interrupt the process long enough to create confusion, delay and worry at the exact moment a precinct is trying to stay on schedule.