(Georgia Recorder) — Some polling places in Georgia will stay open past 7 p.m. after bogus bomb threats caused brief interruptions.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed Tuesday afternoon that Gwinnett County was also targeted after non-credible bomb threats caused two Fulton County precincts – Etris Community Center and Gullatt Elementary in Union City – to close for a short duration during the morning.
Raffensperger told reporters Tuesday that the bogus threats came from Russia, pinning their motive on a desire to “destabilize America.”
“Georgia is not going to be intimidated. Russia has just decided they picked on the wrong Georgia. They need to pick on the other one in the Black Sea, because we’re not going to be intimidated,” he said this afternoon.
WATCH Raffensperger Election Day press conference
As of mid-afternoon, more than 700,000 people had voted Tuesday in Georgia, Raffensperger said.
At that rate, the state is on track to have more than 1.1 million ballots cast today. That’s on top of the 4 million people who voted before Tuesday.
That could put the total voter turnout at around 5.15 million when it’s all said and done tonight, he said. That would be higher than the turnout in the 2020 presidential election when President Joe Biden narrowly defeated former President Donald Trump by less than 12,000 votes.
“That’s really what the big news should be,” he said of the voter turnout.
Georgia is expected to be one of the first battleground states to start posting election results tonight.
