Election Official Gives Update on Toxicity of ‘Suspicious Substance’ Sent To State Capitol

Arizona’s top election official gave an update on the toxicity of a “suspicious substance” sent in a letter to the state capitol as early voting is currently underway in the midterms.

Federal authorities say letters with white powder and other substances have been sent to at least 36 lawmakers plus election offices in at least 10 states over the past few weeks.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Flores told CNN on Friday, “The substance that was collected had gone through labs last night, initially just to check toxicity. That came back negative.”

Regardless, he said the stunt is harming the election process as the midterms fast approach.

“I don’t have any specific information as to what the substance actually is, but it is not harmful to human beings at this time,” Flores said. “The distraction of elections officials during this very, very busy time, and the intimidation of — potential intimidation — of voters is harm. That is harm to our democracy, that is harm to our election systems that we want to run smoothly without intimidation.”

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Postal Service have all been investigating to try to get to the source of who has been sending the letters. USPS has been able to flag some of the letters and stop them before going on to their destinations.

NBC News listed lawmakers who have received letters:

On Friday, Reps. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts; Maxwell Frost and Darren Soto of Florida; Zoe Lofgren, Jimmy Panetta, Linda Sanchez, Laura Friedman and Gil Cisneros of California; Ritchie Torres of New York; Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and Analilia Mejia of New Jersey; Eugene Vindman of Virginia; Pramila Jayapal of Washington; Jan Schakowsky, Robin Kelly, Brad Schneider and Mike Quigley of Illinois; Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan; Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Kelly Morrison of Minnesota and Sarah Elfreth of Maryland also said offices in their home states received such letters.

Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Alex Padilla of California, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons of Delaware, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota have also reported that their offices received suspicious letters.

CNN’s Mark Morales reported Saturday that it’s no coincidence this is happening right before the midterms.

“Back in 2024, before the presidential election, similar packages with a similar white substance was sent to six different states, six different election offices,” Morales said. “So, this has happened before in the past.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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