People wait in line to vote on the last day of early voting at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 1, 2024.Elijah Nouvelage/AFP
The morning of Election Day, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger blamed Russia for creating bomb scares at polling places in the swing state of Georgia. “They’re up to mischief it seems,” Raffensperger said at a press conference of Russia’s efforts. “They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair, and accurate election.”
The bomb threats temporarily closed two voting sites in Union City, Georgia, just outside Atlanta, according to the Election Protection Coalition, which monitors Election Day disruptions. Union City is nearly 90 percent Black and therefore tends to be overwhelmingly Democratic. The county is attempting to extend voting hours at the affected locations.
Five non-credible bomb threats were called in on Tuesday morning. Raffensperger said Russia was the culprit and that federal law enforcement had helped make that determination.
The presidential race in Georgia is expected to be very close and it is one of the states that could determine who wins the White House. Russian President Vladimir Putin has a clear interest in former president Donald Trump retaking the White House. Trump is much more interested in appeasing Putin’s war in Ukraine, has expressed little loyalty to other allies, and is generally solicitous of the authoritarian leader. Vice President Kamala Harris, conversely, has stated her commitment to supporting Ukraine as well as strengthening NATO.
Georgia appears to be a target of Russian meddling this year. A fake video purporting to show recent Haitian immigrants illegally voting for Harris in the state was produced and disseminated by a Russian disinformation outfit, US intelligence officials revealed last week. And this is only the most recent example of a months-long effort by Russian-backed propaganda to target the Harris campaign. As Mother Jones previously reported, the disinformation group responsible for the Georgia video also is believed to be behind another fake video purporting to show ballots for Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania.
