(CNN) — Tens of millions of American voters headed to the polls Tuesday to choose the country’s next leaders in a process that officials said was going smoothly, even with issues caused by non-credible bomb threats from Russia and bad weather.
Several bomb threats at a few Michigan and Georgia polling places caused delays in the vote as security officials cleared the locations.
The threats “appear to originate from Russian email domains,” the FBI said midday Tuesday. “None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far.”
As in all elections, issues with voter eligibility, logistical problems, ballot functionality and vote-counting are being scrutinized closely Tuesday, especially amid former President Donald Trump’s false claims of mass election fraud.
As of mid-morning, extreme weather and other “temporary infrastructure disruptions” have been reported in parts of the US, but there haven’t been any “national-level significant incidents impacting the security of our election infrastructure,” said Cait Conley, a senior adviser at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The issues so far are “largely expected, routine and planned-for events,” Conley added.
Non-credible threats, weather among issues
The non-credible threats to polling locations in Georgia and Michigan were the most significant issues thus far.
In Union City, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, there were several non-credible bomb threats that caused the temporary closure of two polling locations, according to Nadine Williams, Fulton County Registration and Elections Director.
A voting location housing two polling precincts in Gwinnett County, Georgia, was also evacuated for about an hour because of what police call a bomb threat, according to the Gwinnett County Police Department.
Michigan authorities also received threats to polling locations initially deemed “serious in nature” but found not to be credible after investigation by law enforcement, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told CNN.
In addition, bad weather in the Central US could cause some challenges for people attempting to vote. In Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois, a flood watch was in effect until at least 12 p.m. CT for around 4 million people, as persistent and heavy rainfall since Monday has flooded roadways and caused thousands of power outages.
Parts of Louisiana were under a level 2 of 5 threat for severe weather as a strong cold front is producing thunderstorms capable of damaging winds and tornadoes, according to the Storm Prediction Center. A lower, level 1 of 5 threat of damaging winds stretches along the front from Louisiana up through Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, and an additional level 1 of 5 threat of damaging winds is outlined in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
Further, in California, dry air and gusty winds are expected to ramp up for the Bay Area and Sacramento beginning Tuesday morning, which could lead to dangerous fire weather across the region.
There were also some minor reported issues that caused voting delays.
Voting time was extended in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, after a “software malfunction” disrupted voters’ abilities to scan their ballots, the Office of County Commissioners said. The county’s top election official, Scott Hunt, told CNN the malfunction was caused by a printing error, and new ballots are on their way to polling places. The ballots that were already cast but could not be read by the machine will be hand-counted, he said.
A polling place in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania – a conservative-leaning county near Scranton – will be opened for an additional 90 minutes this evening after election workers were delayed in opening the voting site Tuesday morning.
Yet for most people, voting was a simple process. At the Millersville Municipal Building polling location in Pennsylvania, a Republican voter named Janice told CNN the process to vote was “quick and easy.”
Vast majority say voting is easy
Overall, the vast majority of voters express positive views of the voting experience. In a Pew Research Center survey of the 2020 election, 94% of voters said it was very or somewhat easy to vote, while just 6% said voting was very or somewhat difficult. Of the group who said voting was difficult, about half cited logistical issues while voting, such as long wait times at polling places and issues with mail ballots, according to Pew.
Election officials across the US have pledged to uphold the integrity of the vote and urged voters not to be misled by conspiracy theories.
“Here in Georgia, it is easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday. “Our systems are secure and our people are ready.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson warned voters to be cautious of “foreign bad actors” that will try to distract from the secure elections process.
“Don’t fall for it,” Benson said at a news conference Tuesday. “We know that they will use all sorts of misinformation and other tactics today and in the days ahead to create chaos, confusion, fear, division and sow seeds of doubt about what is a very clear, transparent and secure election process.”
The 2024 election has already featured allegations from Trump and other Republicans that the vote is “rigged.” Trump has made repeated false claims that Democrats are cheating in the election, and he’s twisted isolated problems with voting in an effort to prime his supporters to believe the election is not legitimate if he loses.
He has alleged that voting by noncitizens is a widespread problem, that there’s no verification for overseas or military ballots, that election officials are using early voting to commit fraud and that massive swaths of mail-in ballots are illegitimate. The claims are incorrect and baseless.
Broadly, US elections are an extraordinary undertaking: In 2020, more than 161 million voters cast ballots that were counted across 50 states, the District of Columbia and five US territories, at a total of 132,556 polling places and with the aid of 775,101 poll workers, according to the US Election Assistance Commission.
Federal elections are also largely decentralized, as local jurisdictions have the primary responsibility of tabulating, reporting and certifying results.
The majority of voters are at least somewhat confident that this election will be well run, regardless of which candidate they support, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
However, supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris are far more confident, with 90% saying the election will be run smoothly, compared to 57% of Trump supporters. The latter are particularly dubious about whether absentee and mail-in ballots will be properly counted.
Harris supporters are also more confident than Trump supporters that it will be clear who won the election after all the votes are counted, by an 85% to 58% split.
CNN’s Isabel Rosales, Denise Royal, Sean Lyngaas, Ryan Young, Danny Freeman, Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Katelyn Polantz, Jim Sciutto, Sara Murray, Tierney Sneed and meteorologist Elisa Raffa contributed to this report.
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