Multiple bomb threats reported at polling places across Pennsylvania, but officials say ‘no credible threats’
Voting was largely unaffected, though polling location hours were extended, in some cases.
Multiple polling places and vote-counting centers across Pennsylvania received anonymous bomb threats just hours before polls closed Tuesday, prompting brief evacuations in some voting locations and court orders extending the hours of others.
Authorities had not yet identified who sent them. But the threats posed no real danger and, in most cases, voting and counting continued with little disruption, they said.
“State and local law enforcement along with the FBI are investigating these threats,” said Gov. Josh Shapiro. “Thus far, there is no credible threat.”
Still, at least one county — Perry County — called off the scanning of mail and absentee ballots after receiving a bomb threat Tuesday night. Officials there said they would resume tabulating them Wednesday morning.
In Philadelphia, at least 10 polling locations were threatened, said Nick Custodio, a spokesperson for City Commissioner Lisa Deeley. Among them, all threatened in a single email sent to various officials around 6 p.m., were the Mummers Museum, the Palumbo Recreation Center, Courtyard at Riverside, and St. Maron Maronite Catholic Church, all in South Philadelphia, according to a copy of the email viewed by The Inquirer.
Officials in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Centre, Luzerne, Clearfield, Perry, and York Counties also reported receiving similar missives.
They arrived the same day that a series of bomb threats also targeted polling locations in Georgia, which the FBI said had “appear[ed] to originate from Russian email domains.” But as of late Tuesday, investigators had not specifically linked any of the Pennsylvania bomb hoaxes to that same incident.
Ben Block, a Democratic committeeperson in Philadelphia, said most voters appeared content to wait patiently as police swept several polling locations in South Philadelphia’s 2nd Ward, the locus of most of the threats.
One location there shut down for 23 minutes until officers cleared the building. It later received a court order extending its hours for an additional 23 minutes to make up that time.
At St. Maron Maronite Catholic Church, near 10th and Ellsworth Streets, voting had been surging all day, until election workers were forced to briefly evacuate the building for 15 minutes around 7 p.m.
“The good news was the doors reopened,” said Will Gross, a Democratic ward leader. “And the folks who wanted to vote during that period of time were able to go in and vote.”
In Chester County, the hoax messages targeted the Government Services Center, home to both its election office and where officials had been tabulating the county’s vote.
They came in the form of an email that Chester County District Attorney Christopher De Barrena-Sarobe described as “overseas in origin,” which arrived in a group inbox for the county’s voter services staff just before 7 p.m.
Voters and election workers huddled in a parking lot for roughly an hour as helicopters circled overhead and police cars lined the driveway leading up to the facility. Police K-9s scoured the building, but no explosives were found.
“What is clear from all the recent news reports and information from the FBI,” De Barrena-Sarobe said, “is that this is part of a persistent, coordinated attempt to call in bomb threats to swing states in order to disrupt the election.”
Josh Maxwell, chair of the county’s board of commissioners, said county election staff resumed their count undeterred.
They’re “full throttle, ready to go,” he said. A county judge later extended hours of operation for two polling sites in the building.
Meanwhile, in Bucks County, spokesperson Jim O’Malley said officials were “confident in the security” of its county building targeted by threats.
In Luzerne County, where the Bureau of Elections building in Wilkes-Barre was briefly evacuated after receiving a threat of its own, County Commissioner Richard Morelli expressed equal bullishness.
“Always excitement here in Luzerne County,” he quipped.
In addition to the email threats, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner reported a man had been detained for making a bomb threat in person at a West Philadelphia polling location near 66th Street and Chester Avenue. But investigators do not believe he had either a plan or the means to carry out his promise.
“No bombs. No one hurt. No boom,” Krasner said.
And during a news conference marking the closure of the polls in the city, he brushed off all of the threats as minor blips in an otherwise peaceful election.
“We were all very hopeful that the city of Philadelphia would have a very smooth Election Day,” he said. “That is largely what occurred here.”