White Powder Letters Hit Election Offices in Three States. Threatening Poll Workers Is No Way to Win.
Election offices in Louisiana and Oklahoma were evacuated after receiving letters with white powder, and a letter to Ohio's secretary of state was intercepted. No one was hurt.
Less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 elections, someone is mailing envelopes of white powder to the people who run them. Election offices in Louisiana and Oklahoma were evacuated Tuesday after workers opened suspicious letters, and Ohio says a letter addressed to its secretary of state was stopped in the mail.
No one has been reported hurt. The FBI says it is hunting for whoever sent them.
What happened
In Baton Rouge, an employee in the Louisiana secretary of state's Elections Division opened a package around 12:20 p.m. Tuesday and found a white powder, WAFB reported. "Out of an abundance of caution, we have evacuated the Elections section and turned off the building's air conditioning," Secretary of State Nancy Landry said.
The employee was taken uninjured to an emergency room as a precaution, and law enforcement did not find evidence of harmful substances, office spokesperson Trey Williams told NBC News. Louisiana State Police said the substance was sent to the FBI's crime lab for testing. Williams said the incident did not affect any election operations.
The same morning, the Oklahoma State Election Board received an envelope with suspicious white powder and evacuated its office at the state Capitol, the board said. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol later determined the substance was not hazardous and cleared the Capitol complex, Fox23 reported.
"We want to assure Oklahoma voters that today's incident does not impact our ability to conduct elections," said State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax.
On Wednesday, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said his office was the intended recipient of a similar letter, but that U.S. Postal Service investigators caught it first, according to CNN. He said the Postal Service is "dealing with similar mailings sent to election officials in multiple states."
A nationwide investigation
The FBI said Wednesday night that it and the Postal Service are "investigating a series of suspicious mailings sent to various addresses nationwide, including Secretary of State offices and their related election offices." The bureau added, "We are also working with our partners to identify the individual or individuals responsible for the letters." It declined to confirm specific locations.
The national groups for secretaries of state and state election directors said they were "deeply concerned." "Those who administer our elections should never fear for their safety while carrying out their essential duties," their joint statement said.
This has happened before. Election officials in several states received powder-filled mail in the weeks before the 2024 presidential election, CNN reported; NBC put the number of states targeted that year at 20 or more.
Fear is not a ballot
Whoever sent these letters wanted fear, and wanted it now. Election Day is less than three weeks away, and in Texas early voting starts Monday, as Dock Line laid out in our ballot guide.
The people who opened those envelopes are not politicians. They are clerks and staffers who process registrations and answer phones. One of them was sent to an emergency room Tuesday as a precaution. Tests so far have found nothing harmful, but nobody could know that when the envelope was opened.
Conservatives have spent years asking for secure, trustworthy elections, and that cause is worth pressing. But election integrity cuts both ways. It means clean voter rolls and honest counts. It also means the people who keep the rolls and do the counting can go to work without being threatened. Anyone, on any side, who tries to win by scaring election workers is attacking the system they claim to care about.
"The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion," says Proverbs 28:1. People who mail anonymous threats are hiding. The right response is the opposite: find them, prosecute them and keep the offices open. Officials in all three states say law enforcement is investigating.
For ordinary voters, the answer is simple. Show up, vote and thank the poll workers.
Hero photo: Oklahoma Legislative Services Bureau via Wikimedia Commons, CC0, cropped and resized.
