A box of pineapple shaped cookies sent to the Wake County, North Carolina Board of Elections on Tuesday prompted a hazmat response after workers at the office raised concerns about the suspicious package from Hawaii.
We are just on high alert with these things automatically, Wake County elections specialist Danner McCulloh told ABC News. McCulloh cited recent instances of suspicious of packages of powder being sent to election offices.
A hazmat team with the Raleigh Police and Fire Department responded to scene with bomb technicians who X-rayed the package, according to Lt. Jason Borneo of the Raleigh Police Department.
After law enforcement deemed the package to not be threat, it was opened and revealed to be a box of pineapple-shaped cookies from the Honolulu Cookie Company. The package also contained a “thank you” note and was mailed from an address in Hawaii, according to the Raleigh Fire Department.
Operations at the election office were not interrupted as a result of the incident, a spokesman for the county told ABC News. The person who sent the sent the package is believed to have heard a radio story about Wake County and sent the cookies unannounced as a way of thanking the election workers, according to McCulloh.
It was a kind gesture, McCulloh said, though he recommended against others sending cookies to his office.
The fears of attacks against against election workers are not unfounded during this election season. As voters begin to cast their ballots in early voting several incidents have occurred around the country at either polling places and ballot drop boxes.
Incendiary devices were set off Monday at two ballot drop boxes one in Portland and another in nearby Vancouver, Washington destroying hundreds of ballots in what one official called a direct attack on democracy about a week before a heated Election Day.
The ballot box in Vancouver also had a fire suppression system inside, but that failed to prevent hundreds of ballots from burning, said Greg Kimsey, the longtime elected auditor in Clark County, Washington, which includes Vancouver. He urged voters who dropped their ballots in the transit center box after 11 a.m. Saturday to contact his office for a replacement ballot.
In Texas, a man allegedly punched an election clerk at an early voting station after refusing take off his “MAGA” hat. State law prohibits wearing any clothing items in support of any candidate within 100-feet of a polling place. Jesse Lutzenberger was arrested and charged with injury to elderly person
In Florida, a teenager was arrested outside a polling place in Neptune Beach on Tuesday after allegedly wielding a Trump sign on a machete and assaulting two elderly women.
18-year-old Caleb James Williams is facing charges of aggravated assault on a person over the age of 65 and improper exhibition of a firearm or dangerous weapon. Neptune Beach Police Chief Michael J. Key during a press conference following the arrest said Williams “brandished a machete in an aggressive, threatening posture over his head” at two women, ages 71 and 54.”
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