WASHINGTON: Authorities on Thursday have been attempting to find out who despatched suspicious letters, together with some containing fentanyl or different substances, to native election places of work, an assault that seems to have focused a number of states within the newest occasion of threats confronted by election employees across the nation.
Officials in not less than three states — Georgia, Oregon and Washington — reported issues over letters concentrating on election employees. The Pierce County auditor’s workplace in Tacoma, Washington, launched photos of the letter it acquired, displaying it had been postmarked in Portland, Oregon, and browse partially: “End elections now. Stop giving power to the right that they don’t have.”
Among the places of work that gave the impression to be focused was Fulton County in Georgia, which incorporates Atlanta and is the biggest voting jurisdiction in one of many nation’s most necessary presidential swing states. Authorities have been working to intercept the letter. In the meantime, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger stated officers have been sending the overdose-reversal drug naloxone to the workplace as a precaution.
“This is domestic terrorism, and it needs to be condemned by anyone that holds elected office and anyone that wants to hold elective office anywhere in America,” stated Raffensperger, a Republican.
There isn’t any rapid indication that every other election workplace in Georgia was focused, in keeping with an advisory despatched by the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency and obtained by The Associated Press.
Authorities in Lane County, Oregon, which incorporates the University of Oregon, have been investigating a bit of mail that arrived on the native election workplace Wednesday. No one who got here in touch with it had skilled any unfavourable well being results, stated Devon Ashbridge, spokeswoman for the Lane County Elections Office in Eugene.
The incident prompted officers to shut the workplace and delayed a day pickup of ballots. Ashbridge declined to say whether or not any suspicious powder was contained within the mail, referring additional inquiries to the FBI.
“Someone attempted to terrorize our elections staff, and that’s not OK,” Ashbridge stated. “We hope that someone will be held accountable.”
On Wednesday, authorities in Washington state stated 4 county election places of work needed to be evacuated as election employees have been processing ballots forged in Tuesday’s election, delaying vote-counting.
Election places of work in Seattle’s King County and in Skagit, Spokane and Pierce counties acquired envelopes containing powders. Local legislation enforcement officers stated the substances in King and Spokane counties field-tested optimistic for fentanyl. In not less than one different case, the substance was baking soda.
Elections places of work in two Washington counties — King and Okanogan — additionally acquired suspicious envelopes whereas processing ballots throughout the August main, and the letter despatched to King County examined optimistic for traces of fentanyl. The county’s elections director, Julie Wise, informed the AP on Wednesday that letter got here with a message “that certain people shouldn’t have elections.”
The August letters are being investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in addition to the FBI. Wise stated she has not acquired any further info concerning the standing of the investigation or whether or not there’s a suspect.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs referred to as the incidents in his state “acts of terrorism to threaten our elections.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Department of Justice stated the FBI and the postal authorities are investigating, however had no additional remark.
Fentanyl, an opioid that may be 50 instances as highly effective as the identical quantity of heroin, is driving an overdose disaster deadlier than any the U.S. has ever seen as it’s pressed into tablets or combined into different medicine. Briefly touching fentanyl can not trigger an overdose, and researchers have discovered that the chance of deadly overdose from unintentional publicity is low.
It was not instantly clear how authorities got here to suspect {that a} letter may need been despatched to Georgia’s greatest election workplace. In the advisory Thursday, state officers warned counties to take precautions when dealing with mail.
Raffensperger stated the state alerted all 159 of its counties of the attainable menace Wednesday, however believes solely Fulton County is being focused.
It’s the newest disruption because the 2020 election to the workplace that oversees voting in and round Atlanta.
Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts, talking at a information convention Thursday with Raffensperger, stated the county’s election employees had been underneath menace since not less than when two of them have been singled out following the 2020 presidential election, with then-Republican President Donald Trump, lawyer Rudolph Giuliani and others falsely alleging that election employees have been stuffing ballots to assist Democrats. Democrat Joe Biden narrowly received the state.
Part of the Fulton County prosecution that indicted Trump, Giuliani and 17 others contains prison costs specializing in statements and acts made in opposition to election employees.
“There’s people out there who want to do harm to our workers and want to disrupt, interrupt, the flow of democracy and free, open and transparent elections, and we’re prepared for it” stated Pitts, an elected Democrat.
Pitts stated he believes that in 2024 Georgia’s most populous county would be the “focal point” of election scrutiny.
“So this was a good trial run for us, I hate to say it,” he stated.
Many election places of work throughout the United States have taken steps to extend the safety of their buildings and increase protections of employees amid an onslaught of harassment and threats following the 2020 election and the false claims that it was rigged.
It’s a “sad reality” that election officers are nonetheless going through threats, stated David Becker, a former lawyer within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division who works with election officers via the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research.
“While it may be unlikely this attack would cause serious damage, it seems clearly designed to terrorize the public servants in these offices who run elections,” Becker stated.
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Komenda reported from Tacoma, Washington. Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Gene Johnson in Seattle, Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.
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