United States intelligence officials have been quietly issuing warnings to government agencies all summer about a rising threat of extremist violence tied to the 2024 presidential election, including plots to destroy bins full of paper ballots and promote “lone wolf” attacks against election facilities throughout the country.
In a series of reports between July and September, analysts at the Department of Homeland Security warned of a “heightened risk” of extremists carrying out attacks in response to the race. Copies of the reports, first reported by WIRED, describe efforts by violent groups to provoke attacks against election infrastructure and spread calls for the assassinations of lawmakers and law enforcement agents.
Last month, the agency’s intelligence office emphasized in a report that “perceptions of voter fraud” had risen to become a primary “trigger” for the “mobilization to violence.” This is particularly true, the report says, among groups working to leverage the “concept of a potential civil war.” Fears about “crimes by migrants or minorities” are among other top “triggers,” it says.
The documents show that DHS alerted dozens of agencies this summer to online chatter indicating potential attacks on election drop boxes—secured receptacles used in more than thirty states to collect mail-in voter ballots. The text highlights the efforts of an unnamed group to crowdsource information about “incendiary and explosive materials” capable of destroying the boxes and ballots. An extensive list of household mixtures and solvents, which are said to render voter ballots “impossible to process,” was also compiled by members of the group, the report says, and openly shared online.
DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is on a distribution list for several of the reports, declined to comment.
The reports were first obtained by Property of the People, a nonprofit focused on transparency and national security, under open records law. The reports contain details about how to commit crimes and avoid law enforcement, which WIRED is not publishing.
Wendy Via, cofounder and president of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), says the conclusion reached by DHS matches the consensus of experts in the field: “Election denialism is going to be the primary motivator—if there is going to be violence.”
