Bomb threats from Russia disrupt voting at Atlanta-area polling sites

A bid of bomb threats originating from Russia forced 2 polling sites extracurricular Atlanta to adjacent concisely Tuesday morning, officials said.

Two precincts successful the southwest suburb of Union City — Etris Community Center and Gullatt Elementary — shut down for astir 30 minutes each arsenic authorities cleared the scenes, CNN reported.

“We knew it was coming from a overseas authorities actor,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger said astatine a property conference. “Russia’s picked connected the incorrect Georgia. They request to prime connected the different 1 connected the Black Sea.”

Because voting was disrupted for 30 minutes, the polls would stay unfastened for an other 30 minutes astatine night, according to Raffensberger. Union City, wherever approximately 85% of residents are Black, voted overwhelmingly in favour of Joe Biden successful the 2020 statesmanlike election.

Several different polling places received bomb threats from Russia, but voting continued successful astir of them, Raffensberger said. Only the 2 locations successful Union City had to concisely intermission polling for information sweeps, which yet deemed the threats non-credible.

“It’s truly what their full motive is: to effort and destabilize America,” Raffensberger, a Republican, said of Russia. “When you don’t person overmuch going for you, past if you tin effort and destabilize America, that’s astir apt the champion you tin do.”

Georgia is considered 1 of 7 battleground states expected to beryllium important successful the race for president betwixt Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Fulton County, which includes Union City, is the astir populous region successful the authorities and is considered a cardinal location.