Carbon County is one of nearly two dozen counties that received emails on election night claiming that a bomb had been planted in the building housing the elections office.

Commissioner Mike Sofranko, who also chairs the county election board, said Wednesday morning that the county employees in the election office learned of the threat at approximately 12:30 a.m. The email had been sent hours earlier but due to the election workers finalizing the counts, the email had not been checked until then.

“We had some issues in the election so we were running a little behind,” Sofranko said, noting that the envelope opener circuit board on the mail-in ballot machine malfunctioned, leaving the county with thousands of ballot envelopes that needed to be hand opened.

This issue took staff away from email for a time.

Once the email was discovered, Sofranko said that the building was evacuated to 76 Susquehanna St., and law enforcement was notified.

The Carbon County Sheriff’s Office contacted Pennsylvania State Police and Jim Thorpe Borough Police. A bomb-sniffing dog was brought in and cleared the building.

Sofranko said that Sheriff Dan Zeigler worked with the District Attorney’s office, as well as organized the investigation.

Election staff remained at the neighboring building until the all-clear was given.

“They did what they needed to do in the building and then once the sheriff and state police and Jim Thorpe police were comfortable, they allowed us back in the building and we finished up the work,” he said.

Sofranko said that the workers completed the mail-in ballot county at approximately 3:30 a.m. after a neighboring county sent the equipment Carbon needed to finish opening the ballots.

He noted that without the opener, it would have taken county employees approximately 30 hours to open the approximately 15,000 envelopes before being able to scan the ballots.

“Everything was counted with the exception of a few provisionals that we had, along with write-ins, which will be done today,” Sofranko said.

With regards to the threat, Sofranko said that state police are handling approximately two dozen reports of bomb threats in counties throughout the commonwealth.

He also thanked law enforcement, as well as the Comm Center and Jim Thorpe Fire Department for their quick response.

Attempts to reach Zeigler for further comment on the investigation were unsuccessful as of press time.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry said in a statement issued late Tuesday night that “My office is working with law enforcement partners across Pennsylvania on the hoax bomb threat issue, which is believed to have been a coordinated attempt to disrupt swing state voting from an overseas source.”

In addition to Carbon County, other counties that received the threat included Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Centre, Luzerne, Clearfield, Perry, Philadelphia and York.

Gov. Josh Shapiro said that his office had been working closely with law enforcement and at this time there was “no credible threat to the public.”

Election Day

Carbon County polling places saw strong voter turnout at the polls.

Jennifer Ketchledge, county elections director, said that the day was “hectic.”

“I’ve been to a couple of them (polling places) today and they all have had 20 to 30 people in line,” she said Tuesday afternoon.

Ketchledge said that there hadn’t been too many problems, but pointed out that one issue happened at one precinct in Lansford, where the ballot scanner went down.

Poll workers were collecting the ballots and placing them in a bag until election workers were able to get the machine back up and running, then they scanned them into the machine.

“It’s working fine now and everything is good,” Ketchledge said.

Based on votes cast, approximately 77.4% of registered voters in Carbon County cast a ballot on Election Day. This is up from the 2020 presidential election, when 71.85% of Carbon voters cast a vote.