Misha Pride, then the mayor of South Portland, Maine, was greeting voters early on Election Day when police cars suddenly swarmed outside the city’s community center with lights flashing.
“Possible shooting,” the city manager texted Pride. Officers locked down the center.
Authorities quickly determined the call to police was a hoax, one of hundreds of threats and cyberattacks last November aimed at disrupting the presidential election – some pushed by partisan zealots, others perpetrated by foreign state actors including Russia and China. Voting at the community center was delayed by only ten minutes.