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Industry, CA, Thursday, March 7, 2024 – LA County employees continue to process ballots cast in this year’s primary election at the LA County Ballot Processing Center. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

SAN JOSE, California. – A bomb threat at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters office on Saturday forced the evacuation of the building and temporarily halted the counting of electoral votes.

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputies rushed to the polling facility at 1555 Berger Drive around 8 a.m. The threat was sent via email Friday night but was not opened by an employee until Saturday morning.

“Deputies responded within minutes. By the time we arrived, most of the employees had exited the building,” said Brooks Jarosz of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, who was joined by other local departments and K-9 units. “We started going room by room, floor by floor, looking for anything that might be suspicious. It took several hours because we wanted to make sure there was nothing in that building that could harm the employees.”

A lengthy search turned up nothing and the threat was eventually deemed a hoax.

“We lost about five hours of processing time, but it will not impact our certification date,” said Michael Borja of the Santa Clara County Voter Registration Office.

Despite the fear, election workers quickly restarted counting of more than 193,000 outstanding ballots.

“It is not easy to be an election worker in this time,” Borja said.

Santa Clara County wasn’t the only election office to receive threats.

“The Secretary of State’s office issued a statement saying it is aware of threats being made throughout California,” Borja said.

Similar emails were sent to vote counting locations across the country.

The Santa Clara County Voter Registration Office said it plans to bring in extra workers and work overtime to make up for hours lost Saturday.