Bomb threats are spreading to several US states

Bomb threats in parts of Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania turned out to be false, but forced evacuations and extended hours for some polling places.

Threats were reported during the day at polling places in three metro Atlanta counties, all with large Democratic voter turnouts, and in the evening at polling places in Pennsylvania, prompting evacuations.

Bomb threats were also reported at three polling places in Arizona’s Navajo County, according to the secretary of state’s office.

At an evening news conference, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro acknowledged that there have been multiple bomb threats at polling places across the state, but said there is currently “no credible threat” to the public.

“Every legal, qualified vote will be counted and accurately counted, and the will of the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will be respected,” said Shapiro, a Democrat.

In a statement, Pennsylvania State Police said they are working with local partners to respond if needed.

Neither Shapiro nor police provided further details about who might be behind the bomb threats or why Shapiro believes there is no threat to the public.

In Fulton County, Georgia, which includes Atlanta, 32 of 177 polling places received bomb threats and five were briefly evacuated.

The FBI said Tuesday afternoon that it was aware of multiple fake bomb threats to polling places in several states and said many of them appeared to originate from Russian email domains.

“Georgia will not be intimidated,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Tuesday.

Local officials quickly dismissed the claims Trump made on his social media platform, saying there was no indication of any problems affecting the accurate vote count.

“The only talk of massive cheating came from one of the candidates, Donald J. Trump,” said Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.

“There is no factual basis within law enforcement to support this wild claim.

Philadelphia Republican Commissioner Seth Bluestein, the city’s top elected official, also denied Trump’s claims.

“There is absolutely no truth to this claim,” he said.

“It is another example of disinformation.

“The vote in Philadelphia was safe.”

The absence of any significant, widespread problems hasn’t stopped Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after Election Day.

In Georgia, a federal judge dismissed as “frivolous” a last-minute attempt by Republicans to challenge the collection of mail-in ballots by election offices in the Atlanta area last weekend — after early voting had ended.

U.S. District Judge R. Stan Baker, a Trump appointee, said the GOP’s argument “does not stand up to even the most basic level of statutory scrutiny and reading comprehension.”

Trump said Tuesday he won’t challenge the election results — as long as they’re fair.

“If it’s a fair election, I’d be the first to acknowledge” the results, Trump said, though it’s not clear what fits that definition.

Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, urged voters not to fall for Trump’s tactics of casting doubt on the election.

She spent Tuesday afternoon casting her vote at a phone bank hosted by the Democratic National Committee, and said phone banking represents “the best of who we are.”

In Milwaukee, election officials said they were counting more than 30,000 mail-in ballots “out of an abundance of caution” after it was discovered that a door on the back of a ballot scanner was not properly sealed.

The effort, which has drawn the attention of Trump and the Republican National Committee, was expected to delay the count.

At least half of all votes were expected to have already arrived by Tuesday, with more than 84 million Americans voting early.

There were only a few hiccups and frustrations during early voting in the presidential battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The problems that emerged on the final day of voting were “mostly expected, routine and planned events,” said Cait Conley, senior adviser to the agency’s director of cybersecurity and infrastructure security.

The agency has not observed any significant national incidents that would affect election security, she said.