WINONA, Minn. – An email bomb threat at the Winona County elections office went unopened for several days because it arrived after hours followed by a long holiday weekend and the hubbub of post-election business, said county elections chief Chelsi Willbright. Once the email surfaced in a queue, Willbright said, she immediately contacted the county emergency management office. Deputies were sent to check for a bomb and found nothing suspicious. This being 4-12 days after terroristic threat was delivered, albeit unopened, no evacuation was recommended, Willbright said. She disputed an earlier report that the threat was received election night as votes were being tallied. The threat, she said, was time-stamped as coming in Friday, November 8, at 9:14 p.m.
Now come a delay of 4-1/2 days
This is how Willbright explained the delay in notifying the county emergency management director:
> Friday, November 8: The treat arrived by email at 9:14 p.m. addressed to a general county elections address, which wasn’t staffed after-hours, and funneled automatically to Willbright’s personal office inbox.
> Saturday, November 9: Office closed for weekend.
> Sunday, November 10: Office closed for weekend.
> Monday, November 11, Office closed for Labor Day holiday.
> Tuesday, November 12: Willbright was way from her computer to prepare for post-election canvassing in a separate room.
> Wednesday, November 13: Canvassing, a legally required post-election process, began in the morning, after which Willbright found the threat sitting in her email in-basket and immediately called the emergency management office.
Who the terrorist? Why not Election Day?
Willbright, as well as sheriff’s spokesperson, declined to answer news media questions about message itself, but sources said it was only a couple sentences that said, oddly, that there could be human injury although no property damage. It would seem, also, tyat the greater disruptive would have been on election day. Asked whether she could make sense of the message or why the sender waited until three days after the election to send the message, Willbright said: “I’m not going to speculate on why the terrorist waited until after the election.” Winona County was not singled out. Steve Simon, secretary of state, said half of Minnesota’s counties received he same message on November 8. Said Simon: “Affected counties are responding in accordance with local policies and procedures.”