VALE – The Malheur County Clerk’s office was among several Oregon clerk’s offices that received bomb threats on Friday, Nov. 8.
The threat was sent in a mass email to most of the county clerk’s offices in the state, according to Laura Kerns, the communications director for the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office.
Malheur County Clerk Gayle Trotter said on Thursday, Nov. 14, that the email came through late in the afternoon on Nov. 8.
Kerns said the threatening emails were referred to the office’s “law enforcement partners,” including the Oregon State Police, FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Malheur County Sheriff Travis Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kerns and Trotter declined to comment on the language of the emails or any other aspects of the threat due to the active investigation.
In Oregon, a bomb threat targeting a public building is considered first-degree disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor that is punishable by up to a year in jail.
Trotter said this is the first bomb threat she can remember during her 20 years at the election office. Trotter was elected county clerk about seven years ago.
There were bomb threats in numerous states on Election Day, Nov. 5, and ballot boxes in Portland and Vancouver, Washington, were set on fire, according to reports.
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