Phoned-in bomb threats emptied a Toledo polling place and several other northwest Ohio schools on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, interrupting voting at Beverly Elementary School for roughly two hours before police swept the building, found nothing and allowed voters back inside. No injuries were reported, according to WTOL 11, and officials later extended voting at the Toledo site into the evening for voters turned away during the evacuation.
The first threat was reported at about 10:27 a.m. at Beverly Elementary, which was serving as a polling location, WTOL 11 reported. Toledo Public Schools students did not have class Tuesday, so the building held voters and poll workers rather than children. A second threat followed at about 10:39 a.m. at Monac Elementary, where Washington Local Schools staff were in for a workday; that building was also evacuated, swept and cleared, according to WTOL 11 and 13abc.
Toledo Police spokesman Sgt. Mohamad Nasser said the Northwest Ohio Bomb Squad was notified and bomb-detection K-9s were requested to search the sites, according to WTOL 11. Police have not said whether the threats are connected. An election-protection poll monitor told WTOL 11 that roughly 40 people waited outside during the sweep, and that monitors collected contact details for voters turned away so they could be reached about returning.
Lucas County Board of Elections Director LaVera Scott initially said extra voting machines were being brought in so people could vote outside, 13abc reported. Police cleared Beverly Elementary at about 12:15 p.m., and voting resumed inside. Later, the board announced on Facebook that voting at Beverly Elementary would continue until 9:15 p.m., the Columbus Dispatch reported; Dan Lusheck, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office, told the Dispatch the extended hours were for provisional voting only.
In Wood County, Bowling Green City Schools said Conneaut Elementary and Kenwood Elementary both received threatening phone calls on Tuesday morning. Students and staff at both schools were evacuated as a precaution while the Bowling Green Police Division swept the buildings. Police gave the all-clear, and classes resumed as normal, the district said in a safety update reported by the Sentinel-Tribune and BG Independent News.
The district said authorities believe its calls were part of a swatting incident — a false report meant to trigger an emergency response — while stressing they were still taken seriously, according to the Sentinel-Tribune. In Millbury, Lake Local Schools received a bomb threat at about 10:30 a.m.; students were evacuated, Lake Township Police searched each building, found no threat, and students returned to class, the district said, according to the Sentinel-Tribune.
Schools are among Ohio’s most common polling places, which is why a handful of calls disrupted so much of the region’s morning. WTOL 11 reported none of the Bowling Green or Lake Local buildings is a polling site, so the effect there was lost class time. At Beverly, the threat struck voting itself. Separately, the Secretary of State’s Verify Ohio account said Lucas and Wood counties had resolved voting-machine issues by midday, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
The timeline, assembled from reporting by WTOL 11, 13abc and the Columbus Dispatch, is compact: the Beverly Elementary threat at about 10:27 a.m., the Lake Local threat at about 10:30 a.m., the Monac Elementary threat at about 10:39 a.m., and Bowling Green’s calls the same morning. Toledo police cleared Beverly Elementary at about 12:15 p.m. and indoor voting resumed, before the board’s evening announcement extending that site’s provisional voting to 9:15 p.m.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. Confirmed by Toledo Police, the districts and the Lucas County Board of Elections, via WTOL 11, 13abc and the Columbus Dispatch: threats hit Beverly, Monac, two Bowling Green schools and Lake Local; every building was evacuated and searched; nothing was found; no one was injured; Beverly voting resumed at about 12:15 p.m. and ran to 9:15 p.m. provisionally; Bowling Green and Lake Local students returned to class.
Still unknown: whether the calls are connected, who placed them, or whether investigators consider any credible — police have not said, and no official has attributed them to anyone. Bowling Green called its calls an apparent swatting incident; Toledo Police have not applied that label to the Beverly threat, and NewsForce247 is not treating motive or source as established until investigators say so.
Tuesday’s scare arrived during an Election Day with record early turnout in Ohio. NewsForce247 reported earlier Tuesday that Ohio broke its midterm early-voting record as polls opened for Election Day. Only one genuine related link was available in today’s verified coverage at staging time, so none were invented.
What happens next: Toledo Police and the other responding agencies continue investigating, and any identification of a caller will come from law enforcement first. Provisional ballots cast at Beverly during the extended hours will be reviewed by the Lucas County Board of Elections in the official canvass. Voters with questions about their ballot can contact the board, and the four districts that evacuated return to a normal schedule.
Photo: Tim Evanson, CC BY-SA 2.0