BROWNSTOWN TWP, Mich. (WXYZ) — A bomb threat at Carlson High School forced voters and election workers to evacuate a polling location Tuesday, but officials quickly improvised a solution to keep people voting.
Poll workers moved electronic ballot boxes outside and continued voting in the school parking lot while law enforcement responded to the threat, brought in a K9, and swept the building.
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“I’ve never seen something like that happen around, you know, around the United States,” Henry Castro, a resident of Brownstown Twp., said.
Brownstown Township Manager Brian Peters said election workers are accustomed to preparing for unexpected problems, but this was different.
“I mean, there’s a lot of things that happen on elections. There always seems like some curveballs, so you train your staff well to try to be ready for that,” Peters said. “But I believe something like this was a first for us.”
Peters said officers from multiple agencies responded after the township received word of the bomb threat at Carlson High School. With the building evacuated and voters still arriving, township officials brought in generators and moved the electronic ballot boxes to the parking lot.
Peters said moving the polling operation outside was not part of a predetermined plan.
“I think it’s in the moment you just sort of have to make decisions,” Peters said. “When you have to evacuate the building, especially when it’s getting busier, you just have to think about what can we do to make sure people’s votes count, make sure we’re being as accommodating as we can to help people.”
Peters said he had never seen a plan specifically calling for a polling place to be moved into a parking lot during an emergency.
“But as a great idea, it worked, and they were able to maintain that process and make sure people’s voices could be heard,” he said.
Some Brownstown Township residents said they were impressed by the response.
“I am a business owner, and I feel like once you have an event going, you want to keep that event going no matter what it takes,” Erin Hall said. “I know it’s really important to vote and people really want to make it count. So, I think you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, and I think people were happy about it.”
The weather also helped make the unusual arrangement possible. Peters said temperatures around 70 degrees and dry conditions made it easier to operate outdoors.
“The weather, 70 degrees in November and just a nice day, certainly helped us,” Peters said.
Peters said township officials will now examine the response and consider how polling locations could handle similar emergencies in the future.
“I think we can look at this incident,” Peters said. “I’m sure there are some things we can learn from it, things that maybe we could tweak a little bit so that if we did have to evacuate a building, maybe look at each of our polling locations on what our response would be.”
Gibraltar police said they were waiting for prosecutors to bring formal charges against the person accused of making the threat. Police also said making such a threat is a felony.
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