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By Kaitlyn Schallhorn | [email protected] | Orange County Register

UPDATED: November 8, 2024 at 9:35 PM PST

Orange County’s elections office, where ballots were being counted, received a bomb threat Friday afternoon, the registrar said.

Staff and members of the public who were watching ballots being tallied were evacuated from the Santa Ana building at about 6:45 p.m., Bob Page, the registrar of voters said, and everyone is safe.

Bomb detection dogs were used to conduct a search of the building, and no explosives were discovered, according to the registrar.

“The Orange County Registrar of Voters is committed to ensuring equal access to the election process, protecting the integrity of votes, and maintaining a transparent, accurate, and fair election system,” said Page. “We are working diligently to address this incident and keep all staff and members of the public who visit our office safe.”

The threat was emailed to one of the registrar’s general accounts, Page said. There were already a “significant” number of deputies from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department present at the office, as is typical during the processing of ballots, and they were called into Page’s office to review the threat and come up with a plan of action. Poll observers were evacuated first, followed by registrar staff, said Page.

The evacuation occurred just 15 minutes before the county elections office was scheduled to stop processing ballots for the night, according to the registrar. That means ballots were left out where they were when the evacuation occurred, Page said.

Two deputies are stationed at the registrar’s office overnight to ensure the ballots are protected, as is the protocol during the ballot counting, Page said. The registrar’s office will pick the ballot processing back up Saturday morning, as regularly scheduled, Page said.

Several polling locations received bomb threats on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, the FBI said earlier this week. The threats were not deemed credible and many appeared to come from Russian email domains, the FBI said.

The Orange County registrar posted its latest tally of votes at 5 p.m. Friday. The next batch of vote tallies is expected to come Monday evening.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.