Election offices in at least six states have received envelopes containing white powder, intensifying concerns about threats and potential violence as the midterm elections enter their final week.
The FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service told Our News Outlet that they are investigating as many as 100 suspicious mailings sent to election administrators this month.
The incidents have heightened anxiety among state and local officials as millions of voters prepare to head to polling stations nationwide and cast their ballots.
Authorities have not identified who is behind the mailings.
Several election officials have pointed to President Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, warning that his repeated claims of widespread voter fraud could encourage further threats.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes accused Trump of “ginning up” political division before the midterms. In a CNN interview, he described the president’s conduct as “wholly and completely irresponsible.”
“Unfortunately, the president has a very broad reach and his audience takes him very seriously,” Fontes said. “I have personally had colleagues who had their dogs poisoned,” he added. “My own family has been threatened. I have been threatened.”
The White House has defended the administration’s election policies as necessary measures to combat voter fraud and uphold federal election laws.
President Donald Trump speaks during the RNC convention in Dallas, Texas. Trump urged voters to “pretend he is on the ballot” as he sought to boost Republican support in the November elections
Election specialists pack bags in a room filled with counted ballots the day after the 2020 election in North Carolina
Protesters breach the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the presidential election results
“No one has done more than President Trump to ensure America has free and fair elections,” Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, told Our News Outlet.
The warnings have continued to mount. Law enforcement officials said more than 100 letters were sent to state and local election facilities in October, with officials in Louisiana, Ohio and Oklahoma reporting that they had been targeted.
In Louisiana, a state employee was taken to a hospital as a precaution after opening one of the letters, prompting officials to evacuate the building.
In recent weeks, more than three dozen congressional offices have also received letters containing a white, powder-like substance.
Local news outlets reported earlier this month that at least 10 people were exposed to white powder mailed to the New York offices of Democrats Hakeem Jeffries, Ritchie Torres and Tom Suozzi.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, California Democratic Senator Alex Padilla, Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz also appeared to have been targeted, according to ABC News and Axios.
The growing number of threats has forced election administrators to intensify staff training and prepare for an expanding range of possible attacks.
Many officials have turned to organizations such as the nonpartisan Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, or CSSE. The group, made up of current and former election administrators and law enforcement officers, provides security training for election personnel.
Tina Barton, the organization’s co-chair, told Our News Outlet that she had conducted more than 140 security sessions for state and local election workers ahead of the November 3 election—more than double the approximately 67 sessions she led in 2024.
During an interview, Barton said demand had “substantially increased” over the past two years, driven by the emergence of sophisticated technologies and growing recognition among law enforcement agencies that these threats “aren’t going away.”
The organization trains sheriffs’ offices, police departments and election workers on emerging dangers, de-escalation methods and other steps to improve safety.
Its “tabletop exercises” also help officials rehearse responses to bomb threats, suspicious packages, swatting incidents and disruptions involving possible drone activity.
A voter completes a ballot on the first day of in-person voting in Kansas. Election officials in other states remain on alert after multiple offices received letters containing an “unknown substance”
Although they work at the local level, election officials face a disproportionate level of abuse. A Brennan Center study released this year found that 32 percent of election officials said they had been “threatened, harassed, or abused” because of their work.
Barton, a former Republican city clerk in Michigan, has faced such intimidation herself. “I had my life threatened in 2020,” she told Our News Outlet, recalling a man who called and threatened to kill her and her family in explicit terms.
Andrew Nickels, of Carmel, Indiana, was charged with making interstate threats against an election worker and received a prison sentence of more than a year in 2023.
Barton now says she is determined to help prevent other election officials from enduring similar abuse.
She also urged politicians with large audiences to consider the consequences of their public statements.
“Every action they take evolves into a reaction by people who believe them and trust them,” she said. “We all have a responsibility when we know we have authority.”
Public confidence in the electoral system remains fragile. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll found that only six in 10 Americans said they would trust the results of an election.
Meanwhile, a PBS News/Marist survey conducted earlier this month found that 30 percent of voters believe violence may be necessary to put the country back on course.
In response, some states have increased security at polling locations and introduced a range of measures aimed at protecting election workers during the November vote.
Several counties in Georgia and Nevada have equipped polling places with “panic buttons” that send GPS coordinates and photos to local sheriffs’ offices and emergency dispatch centers when activated.
In Los Angeles County, election officials are working with bomb-detection canine teams to inspect incoming mail.
Polling locations in Durham County, North Carolina, now feature bulletproof glass, surveillance cameras and advanced mail-ventilation rooms with separate exhaust systems designed to contain potentially dangerous substances.
The wave of threats comes as the president has sought to expand federal authority over elections during his second term.
Trump signed two executive orders aimed at regulating how states use mail-in ballots, but the effort was blocked by the Supreme Court last month. He has also repeatedly alleged that noncitizens are voting illegally, despite studies showing that such cases are exceedingly rare.
Last week, the Justice Department sued California after the state declined to remove 20,000 suspected noncitizens from its voter registration rolls.
In a separate case, a federal judge barred the Department of Homeland Security from reviewing voter rolls in nine states through its “Unlawful Voting Initiative.” The department is expected to appeal the ruling.
Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer and founder of Democracy Docket, said politically driven warnings about election fraud pose a greater danger to democracy than the rare instances of illegal voting themselves.
“In a nation of 340 million Americans, where you have hundreds of millions of voters voting in each election, a couple of voters or a dozen voters who vote illegally is not changing the outcome of anything,” he said.
Barton said the hostility encouraged by political figures too often falls on state and local election workers.
“Unfortunately, some of that rhetoric has been targeted at the election community and the election processes,” Barton said. “And the average election worker is the one that ends up bearing the brunt of this.”
