New Jersey Polling Places Closed After Bomb Threats on Election Day

It’s Election Day in New Jersey, and it’s not merely the statistically tied gubernatorial race that is driving the news for the Garden State. On Tuesday morning, news came in of emailed bomb threats being sent to polling locations, resulting in some closures.

The threats have since been declared to be noncredible.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin released a statement saying that some of the sites in question were reopened to the public while people have been directed to other sites due to closures. Voting is open until 8 p.m. Tuesday for Election Day.

Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba also chimed in to reassure that monitoring is in place.

The polling places in question were in Bergen, Essex, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, and Passaic counties. As NBC New York reported, Passaic is also newsworthy because the Trump administration has sent federal election observers there.

As of Tuesday, RealClearPolling has Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill leading Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 3.3 percentage points, with Sherrill’s lead having been cut recently, making the race within the margin of error, according to several polls. In addition to his confidence in pulling off his own win, Ciattarelli has expressed hope in flipping the state’s General Assembly for Republicans.

Sherrill has posted about her concerns with the threats over X, emphasizing her opposition to “voter suppression in our state.”

The last time New Jersey voted for a Republican governor was Gov. Chris Christie, who was first elected in 2009. The last time a Republican governor was elected with a Republican president in office was Thomas Kean in 1984 while Ronald Reagan was president.

Although New Jersey voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris last year, she only won by close to six points, compared to Joe Biden, who won the state in 2020 by close to 13 points.