AP Photo/Ben Gray, File
Police departments in Fulton County, Georgia said that several polling locations received bomb threats and two of them were temporarily closed on Tuesday.
The locations — Darnell Senior Center in Union City and Gullatt Elementary School — received five “non-credible bomb threats,” per Fox 5 Atlanta, that were investigated and deemed to be inactive. Both locations reopened with increased police presence. Officials also said that they filed a court order to keep the polling locations open an extra 30 minutes to allow for the missed time caused by the temporary evacuation.
Other threats were also made to a polling location at Feldwood Elementary School in South Fulton, but the location closed and polling went uninterrupted.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a press conference on Tuesday that officials believed the threats came from Russia, adding that “Russians are not our friends.” Chief operating officer for Georgia’s Secretary of State’s Office Gabriel Sterling also clarified that a fake video claiming that illegal Haitian immigrants were voting in Georgia was posted by someone paid by Russians. In a tweet, Sterling said: “Look forward to those that shared the disinformation apologizing for helping our enemies.”
Fulton County is home to Atlanta, the state’s most populous city, which is seen as reliably Democratic-leaning. It is also the county where former President Donald Trump was indicted on conspiracy charges related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
