In three recent incidents, malicious actors moved beyond threatening words and intimidation directed at election administration to commit destructive and violent acts. These acts remind us that pre-election security planning is not about hypotheticals. The potential for serious incidents is unfortunately quite real.
Polling Place Explosive Device
Most recently, in February of this year, a flash-bang device was thrown from a moving vehicle toward an active early voting site in Moore County, North Carolina. Roughly 30 voters and poll workers were present. No one was injured, but the attack disrupted voting and remains under investigation.
The device landed 150 yards from the polling place, close enough that campaigners outside the polling place heard the crack of the device and saw the pulse of light. State Senate candidate Ray Daly described it as “louder than gunshots” and said that he saw it “burst into three parts.”
“We believe the poll was targeted,” Captain Shannon Blackburn of the Aberdeen Police Department said.
Moore County Election Director Towanna Dixon stressed that “Every election season we make sure there is a safety plan in place, though we don’t discuss that (plan) with the public.” She had coordinated with the emergency management office and local police departments to ensure regular patrols and said the police presence would be increased in the wake of the incident.
Election Office Fire-Bombing
In another destructive incident, in June 2025, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through a window of the election office in the Archuleta County Clerk and Recorder’s Office in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, in the early morning hours while the building was empty. The fire destroyed voting equipment and displaced 30 staff members. A suspect with a documented history of publicly opposing the county’s voting systems was arrested two weeks later.
As in Moore County, security planning played a role in the Archuleta County incident. In this case, an exterior security camera covered the side of the courthouse where the suspect hurled the device and caught him in the act. The suspect’s movements before and after the incident, as well as the vehicle he used, were also captured on video. As a result, a suspect was arrested and charged with felony arson and use of an incendiary device.
The suspect had publicly questioned the integrity of Dominion voting machines and expressed grievances about election outcomes, including at local government meetings. Officials referenced those statements in the arrest affidavit.
Damage to equipment was significant — the office has been obligated to purchase new voting equipment to ensure system integrity and security compliance.
Drop-Box Arson
In earlier incidents in late October 2024, incendiary devices were placed inside ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington — eight days before the General Election. In Portland, an internal suppression system contained the fire. In Vancouver, a similar protective system was insufficient to overcome the intensity of heat generated by the device, and nearly 500 ballots were destroyed. Several weeks before the two incidents, a similar incendiary device had been secured to a nearby ballot drop box, but it failed to ignite.
How do these incidents impact your security planning?
These incidents span three distinct threat scenarios:
- an attack on an active polling site;
- an attack on an elections office;
- an attack on a ballot drop-box.
Together, the incidents show that some malicious actors are willing to take destructive, violent action against election facilities, a threshold that rarely had been crossed previously. Narratives about voting technology and other election-related anger can escalate beyond rhetoric and generate attacks.
This underscores the absolutely critical role of physical security planning and law enforcement coordination.
The incidents also show that physical security can be more than an Election Day problem. Election facilities and equipment are potential targets at all times. An attack doesn’t need to happen during voting hours to disrupt an election or disenfranchise voters.
The Situation Room focuses on real security incidents and threats in the news relevant to election security. To review previous issues, see the newsletter archive.