Russia blamed for bomb threats at Georgia and Arizona polling sites

Russia is behind a series of false bomb threats in Georgia and other states that briefly closed polling stations Tuesday, an escalation in tactics aimed at sowing fear and suppressing votes, federal and local officials said.

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

While the FBI did not name the states targeted, local officials said there were at least six threats in Georgia alone, all in Democratic-leaning areas in the greater Atlanta area. Four occurred in Fulton County, including two that led to polling places closing down for half an hour, and another in nearby Gwinnett County that was down for 30 to 40 minutes, a state official said on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Another threat was aimed at a polling place in Clayton County, the official said.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said several polling locations in Navajo County, home to many Native Americans, received hoax bomb threats as well. “We also have reason to believe, although I won’t get into specifics, that this comes from one of our foreign enemies, namely Russia,” said Fontes, a Democrat. Zach Stoebe, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for Arizona, said the Justice Department was investigating the threats but could not verify Russian ties.

The threats hit predominantly minority areas, and officials were concerned that some unable to vote immediately might not return, according to a Justice Department official not authorized to talk with the press who spoke anonymously.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, was the first to point the finger at Russia.

Some polling location officials said they were seeking court orders to extend their hours of operation to make up for the disruption.

The top elections official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the disruptions were not deemed a national threat to the orderly voting process.

Earlier Tuesday, the FBI attributed a video to Russia that falsely claimed that the bureau had warned voters to stay home because of the possibility of violence. A second video featured a fake FBI press release claiming that operators of five prisons conspired with a political party and rigged inmate voting, it said.

On Sunday, a Russian operation put out a video with a fake whistleblower saying Arizona officials were conspiring to throw the election to Harris and calling for physical protests, the FBI said late Monday.

The new threats mark an escalation from recent videos falsely claiming voting fraud and bear out U.S. warnings that Russia especially would seek to sow distrust and chaos during the election and its aftermath and could try to instigate violence.

With most voters having decided whom to support, officials said it made sense for Russia, whose disinformation efforts have centered on supporting former president Donald Trump, to shift toward provoking chaos around the voting and certification process instead.

“They likely realize they can’t really make people change behaviors at this polls,” said former CISA Director Chris Krebs. “If chaos is the point, the most opportune window to create mischief is the post-November 5th pre-certification period.”

U.S. officials said the disruptions could get worse over the next two months.

“If voters are leaving polling places or not showing up because of law enforcement activity or general fear, that goes beyond this idea that Russia is just out there spreading partisan memes,” said Bret Schafer, senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

In the past few days, Germany accused Russia of calling in bomb threats to disrupt voting in closely watched elections in Moldova, which shares a border with Ukraine. A German foreign ministry spokesman said multiple polling places set up for Moldovans living abroad had been disrupted.

“This certainly feels like a new page in the Russian playbook, given that they were accused of doing the same thing in Moldova over the weekend,” Schafer said.

U.S. cybersecurity agency senior adviser Cait Conley said the government was not aware of a coordinated propaganda campaign to build on the bomb threats by claiming that it was an opportunity for vote-switching, but added her agency “would not be surprised” by efforts to take advantage.

“We have seen the influx of narratives that have the potential and arguably the intention of inciting physical violence,” Conley said in a press briefing.

She said that the Russian disinformation efforts, which have included paying social media stars and crafting websites that look like pages from The Washington Post, Fox News and others, are more extensive and sophisticated than in any previous election cycle. She also said threats to election officials were a major concern.

Conservative pundits on social media disputed the attribution to Russia and blamed Democrats.

“If you believe Russia did a bomb threat in Georgia - you probably believed it when the government told you masks work,” one wrote.

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Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Holly Bailey and Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.