A polling station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 November 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / DAVID MUSE

Hoax bomb threats that disrupted voting at polling stations in battleground states across the US during Tuesday’s presidential election originated from email domains linked to Russia, according to the FBI.

“The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains. None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far,” the agency said in a statement on Tuesday evening, adding that ensuring the integrity of the US election was among its “top priorities”.

Voting was disrupted due to hoax bomb threats at polling stations in the key swing states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin on Tuesday, with a number of stations forced to briefly evacuate voters and extend voting hours.

The FBI’s statement came after Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told reporters earlier on Tuesday that threats to several polling stations in the state had been identified as coming from Russia.

“They’re up to mischief, it seems. They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election, and they think if they can get us to fight among ourselves, they can count that as a victory,” Raffensperger said.

A Russian official speaking to US magazine Newsweek on background rejected claims that the threats had originated from Russia as “vague and unclear” and stressed that the Kremlin had “no relation to any election interference, let alone bomb threats”.

“Unfortunately, when something bad happens, it is often claimed to be of Russian origin, especially during US election campaigns,” the unnamed official said.

On Friday, a joint statement from the FBI and other US intelligence agencies accused “Russian influence actors” of creating and circulating two hoax videos aimed at influencing voters on the eve of the election, which it said formed part of “Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans”.

The Russian Embassy in Washington dismissed the accusations as “malicious slander”, adding that the “US authorities and media going into a frenzy over ‘Russian disinformation and interference’” in the country’s elections had become an “unfortunate tradition”.