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An election official identified what he described as a “concerning unknown chemical” inside an absentee ballot submitted in Adams County, Colorado. Now, the FBI is investigating the incident.
“Authorities in Colorado are investigating a ‘suspicious, powdery substance’ found in a ballot mailed to the Adams County elections office in what officials say ‘appears to be an attempt to disrupt the elections process,'” ABC News reported.
“Hazmat units, paramedics, firefighters, and other law enforcement agencies were called to the county offices after the ballot was received Wednesday, and initial testing of the substance was negative for explosives, biological agents, and narcotics, Adams County clerk Josh Zygielbaum said Thursday. FBI officials in Denver confirmed Thursday that they are supporting local law enforcement in the investigation,” the report added.
Zygielbaum said the powder contained a “concerning, unknown chemical,” so samples have been sent for further testing.
“It really drives home what we’ve been concerned with, but we’ve got great plans in place and will ensure that the election goes off without a hitch,” Zygielbaum told ABC News. “And even if we have individuals who are going to try to disrupt the process, we will work around them to make sure it gets done.”
“The voter’s anonymity is protected and their constitutional right to vote is in place,” Zygielbaum added. “Should it be determined safe, we will move forward with processing this ballot.”
BREAKING: Elections officials, police investigating after 2022 ballot with suspicious substance is found in Adams Countyhttps://t.co/3Qb2u3T2g2
— The Colorado Sun (@ColoradoSun) November 3, 2022
Adams County Public Information Officer William Porter said the ballot was deposited at a ballot drop box in Thornton on Tuesday, according to the Northern Glenn-Thornton Sentinel.
“Ultimately, this is why we have security protocols,” Porter said. “We don’t want to allow incidents like this to disrupt our elections. This is the new world we live in with evolving threats. So the biggest thing is, we don’t want there to be a panic. We want to people to have confidence in the election.”
Thornton police interviewed the voter who dropped off the ballot and said the individual was cooperating and appeared unaware of how the powder got into the ballot.
The American electorate is extremely agitated and that doesn’t bode well for the party in power, according to a new survey.
Normally, midterm elections do not draw as many voters to the polls because there is no presidential contest to decide, but this year is shaping up to be different. Much different — more so, even, than the 2018 midterms, which drew a record amount of voters to cast ballots.
“We know that many voters will be casting ballots with anger on their minds. We just don’t know who which side will be angrier,” Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates told NBC News.
A new survey he conducted with Republican Bill McInturff and his team at Public Opinion Strategies found that 70 percent of registered voters have a very high interest in the midterms — registering them at a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale, with 10 being the highest interest.
The pollsters say that is the highest level of interest in a midterm election that they have seen.
“It’s an eye-popper,” said McInturff.
The Daily Wire adds:
What’s more, Republicans are more jazzed than Democrats for the midterms. Among GOP voters, 78% of Republicans have high interest, compared with 69% of Democrats. That 9-point edge for Republicans is triple what it was in the pollsters’ survey in September. The legacy media is doing all it can to pretend the 2022 midterms will be close. They won’t be. Polls show the Republican lead rising exponentially in a generic poll; 3% over Democrats in July, 6% in August, and 9% last month.
For his part, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) believes Republicans are in for massive gains around the country and in Congress.
“I would say we’ll be between plus three and plus seven … in the Senate; and we’ll be between plus 20 and plus 50 in the House, with the most likely number being plus 44,” Gingrich told The Epoch Times.
“Almost everywhere in the country, races are showing the Republicans tightening up,” Gingrich said, adding that Democrats have only themselves to blame for their loss of support, adding that inflation, crime, border security, and “woke policies” are all “coming together” against them.
“When you have sort of insane left-wing Democrats who believe that you don’t need prisons and that things can be dealt with by just being nice to murderers, I think the average person just thinks this is crazy,” he said, citing crime concerns in New York as one example.
He also said he believes Republicans are winning the abortion argument. “Republicans are actually winning the argument because it’s a question of who’s the more extreme,” he told the outlet.
He added that abortion is “not helping Democrats as much as they think.”
“People actually think the Democrats are more extreme in their eagerness to kill babies than Republicans are in their desire to save babies,” he said. “Their activists are so intense, and so rabid, and their activists have been giving money, it feels like it’s a good issue for them. But when you go out to the country beyond the hard left of the Democratic Party, it’s in fact, not working for them at all.”
