2024 Election “Trojan Horse”: Lion of Judah Poll Workers + Swing County Bomb Threats

Two of Georgia’s Swing Counties Hold Clues to 2024 Election Anomolies

In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. election, a pro-Trump Christian nationalist network quietly worked to place election skeptics inside the voting process as official poll workers (not just outside observers).

A group called Lion of Judah, led by operative Joshua Standifer, teamed up with charismatic preachers on a swing-state tour to recruit conservative Christians for “key positions of influence in government like Election Workers.”

Standifer openly described this as a “Trojan horse” strategy – getting their people on the inside of polling places so they could detect (or thwart) supposed fraud as “the first step on the path to victory” for Donald Trump. Standifer’s nonprofit was founded in 2021 and spent years training thousands of volunteers for this mission, focusing especially on pivotal battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona.

At revival-style “Courage Tour” events, figures like preacher Lance Wallnau and Standifer urged the faithful to become poll workers in order to secure the election for God’s “anointed” candidate, Donald Trump.

Standifer invoked debunked claims about 2020 (such as poll watchers being kicked out and windows covered in Detroit) to stoke distrust, telling recruits: “We all remember 2020 when they boarded up the windows… kicked all the volunteers out. You can be on the inside… making sure that nothing nefarious happens.”

In other words, “God’s Army” of poll workers would serve as eyes and ears inside the system, prepared to flag (or fight) anything they viewed as irregular.

Lion of Judah’s training materials even instructed these recruits to report “suspicious activities or irregularities” to the group’s own hotline first – before alerting local election officials . This clandestine approach alarmed experts, who warned that such partisan “eyes inside” could disrupt procedures or sow unfounded distrust in legitimate vote counts. Importantly, poll workers have substantially more access and authority than poll watchers.

In private trainings, organizers explicitly contrasted the two roles: “Poll watcher is the person where you get kicked out if chicanery happens… If you’re a ‘poll worker,’ you’re the one doing the chicanery, so you can lock the door. You can kick everybody out,” said Mercedes Sparks, an aide to Wallnau. (She later claimed this was a “lighthearted joke,” not a literal plan.)

Nonetheless, the sentiment underscores why this campaign was dubbed a “Trojan horse.” Recruits were told they could act as a “spy in the camp” on Election Day – placed within election offices to watch for anything suspect (according to their suspicions) and potentially intervene.

By mid-2024, this effort had expanded across at least six swing states, with unknown numbers of these activists signing up as official workers at polling places and ballot counting centers.

At the same time, the Republican Party itself was pursuing a parallel strategy: after a decades-old court consent decree lapsed in 2018, the GOP openly prioritized placing loyal “election integrity” volunteers in poll worker roles across eight key states.

In short, going into Election Day 2024, an unprecedented number of partisan actors – many convinced that the 2020 election was stolen – had positioned themselves inside the machinery of election administration.

Election Day Bomb Threats in Key Counties

While these poll worker trainees fanned out to staff voting sites, Election Day (Nov 5, 2024) saw an alarming wave of bomb threat hoaxes targeting polling places in crucial counties. Dozens of bomb threats were emailed or phoned in to locations across at least five battleground states – Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Pennsylvania – precisely the swing states that both campaigns dearly needed .

Officials reported that many threats appeared to come from foreign email addresses (with .ru domains), and the FBI stated that they “originated from Russia” in many cases.

Georgia was hit especially hard: more than two dozen threats there prompted the evacuation of multiple polling sites across metro Atlanta counties.

In Arizona, four polling sites in Navajo County received bomb threats as well. All told, an NBC News analysis found that out of 67 affected polling or counting locations, 56 were in counties that had voted for Biden — suggesting a pattern of targeting predominantly Democratic areas. This fueled suspicions that the hoaxes were strategically aimed at areas favoring Trump’s opponent.

No Real Bombs, Just Opportunity

Thankfully, none of the bomb threats were found credible on Election Day – no actual bombs were discovered at any voting site . Law enforcement and election officials acted quickly.

For example, in Atlanta’s Fulton County, two precincts were evacuated but re-opened within about 30 minutes, and a court granted extensions to keep those polling sites open later than usual so voters could still cast their ballots. Similarly, in Dekalb County the six evacuated polling places were allowed to stay open past the normal closing time to make up for lost voting time.

In Pennsylvania, when a bomb threat forced one West Chester polling site to shut down briefly, voters were redirected to an alternate location and given provisional ballots so no one would be turned away.

Across the country, election officials had prepared for exactly this kind of scenario. Prior to Election Day, federal and state authorities had drilled on emergency responses, given the uptick in threats.

That preparation paid off: despite at least 200+ bomb threats reported nationwide around Election Day (including some in the days after), the voting process continued with only sporadic delays. Indeed, media outlets later described the 2024 election as relatively “smooth” and even “almost boring,” precisely because these crises were handled quickly and transparently .

Still, the bomb scare blitz on Nov 5 did introduce chaos and confusion, especially in the very counties that were considered decisive. Voters arriving to locked-down polling stations faced frightening (if short-lived) scenes of police tape and emergency responders. On social media, rumors immediately swirled around the bomb threats.

Suppression? Manipulation—Or both?

Many worried this was a deliberate voter suppression tactic aimed at blue precincts – essentially trying to scare or inconvenience Democratic voters so they’d give up and go home . (It did not go unnoticed that these “Russian” threats somehow skipped many heavily Republican areas and overwhelmingly hit Democratic cities.)

Right-wing influencers, meanwhile, spun a competing conspiracy theory: they speculated that the bomb threats might actually be “false flags” staged by Democrats to later blame on Republicans or Russians . In other words, each side accused the other of orchestrating the hoaxes for political gain.

One bizarre twist: just a day before the election, a poll worker in Georgia himself was arrested for allegedly mailing a bomb threat to his local elections office in an attempt to frame a voter he disliked. This case (an isolated incident in October) was seized upon by some far-right voices to claim “see, poll workers do bomb scares too!” and muddy the narrative about who was behind the Election Day threats.

Do Extremist Poll Workers and Bomb Threats Count as Interference?

Those skeptical of the 2024 outcome argue that yes, this two-pronged approach (infiltrating poll workers + well-timed disruptions) could have influenced closely contested states. For one, the bomb threats very clearly targeted Democratic-leaning areas on Election Day, which suggests an attempt to suppress votes in exactly the counties a Republican candidate needed to flip. Even brief evacuations or scares can deter some voters – imagine arriving to vote before work, encountering a bomb scare lockdown, and not being able to wait around.

Some percentage of people undoubtedly never came back to vote once polls reopened. In an ultra-tight race, even a small dip in turnout in key precincts can matter. For example, Georgia in 2020 was decided by only ~12,000 votes; a coordinated disruption across Atlanta’s busiest polling sites could theoretically chip away at that margin by scaring off a few voters per precinct.

Let’s Talk About Georgia: Cobb and Gwinnett Helped Give 2024 to Trump

It is important to note that in Georgia, there is a direct overlap: bomb threats hit Fulton, Dekalb, Gwinnett, and Cobb — the same counties where Lion of Judah poll-worker training was heavily focused.

Similar overlaps are strongly indicated in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — all key swing-state counties listed in recruitment drives were also among those receiving threats.

However, Georgia was hit the hardest. Bomb threats were reported at polling places in three metro Atlanta counties, including Fulton County (Atlanta) where a staggering 32 polling sites received emailed threats, and at least five had to be evacuated. Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger later said “over 60 bomb threats” were made across Georgia that day – a massive, coordinated campaign to disrupt voting in the state’s population center.

Georgia: High Turnout, Stistcically Improbable Shifts

In the end, two reliably democratic counties in Georgia, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Arizona — all previous democratic counties, and all of which saw demographic and culture shifts toward a left-leaning voting base, not right, over the past 4 years — had unexplainable shifts to Trump compared to 2020, and compared to similar counties in other states for the 2024 election. The swing to the right is especially suspect in light of the protests held by women in southern states after the Heartbeat laws went into effect.

These counties, targeted aggressively by religious extremist poll workers and bomb threats that closed polls temporarily, cost Kamala Harris the win in Georgia.

The anomalous flip of two of those counties—Cobb and Gwinnett—completely erased Harris’s path to victory in Georgia. Had they stayed blue, she would have won by over 230,000 votes.

West Chester, PA: A 1-in-845 Chance It Could Flip Like This

Similarly, West Chester, PA had a shift rare enough (1-in-882,000) to strongly merit further scrutiny—especially since it was accompanied by unusual poll worker deployments and voter access disruptions like the ones seen in GA.

Two bomb threats targeted polling locations in West Chester (Government Services Center and West Goshen precincts) on Election Day, prompting evacuations, redirections, and extended voting hours until 10 p.m.

As discussed earlier, one West Chester polling site shut down briefly during the bomb threats, and voters were redirected to an alternate location and given provisional ballots so no one would be turned away.

Disruption coincides with extreme election swing—something worth investigating. Though no ties to partisan poll worker recruitment have been made, the combination of chaos and unusually large vote shifts mirrors patterns seen in Georgia and Arizona. Compared to Maricopa, Chester’s swing is more statistically anomalous and politically significant in its region.

Maricopa County, Arizona: Large Shift but Statistically Possible at Least

Maricopa County, Arizona saw third largest vote shift of the swing counties among those targeted by Lion of Judah and bomb threats after Georgia’s Cobb+Gwinnett Counties and Pennsylvania’s Chester County.This

Together, 4 swing counties across the country lost the election for Harris, despite high voter turnout and excitement. The results in these 4 US democratic counties changed the outcome for a nation—and for generations to come.

Did ”God’s Army” and Man’s Bombs Really Make the Difference?

The fact that 56 of 67 threatened sites were in Biden-voting counties shows a clear directional bias – hinting that someone wanted to knock out blue votes. It’s not hard to imagine this was done intentionally to aid the GOP candidate. If so, it’s a form of election interference that, while low-tech, could have tangible effect if the margins were razor-thin.

Moreover, having partisan poll workers embedded in those same swing counties might amplify the impact. These Lion of Judah-trained workers were not shy about their objective: Standifer told followers that having their people “actually… counting the votes” in swing states was the goal .

Once inside, such poll workers could engage in subtle forms of vote suppression or ballot challenge. For instance, they might slow down the check-in or ballot processing for certain voters (leading to longer lines and more people leaving in frustration). They could be hyper-strict in checking voter IDs or signatures in Democratic precincts, resulting in more provisional ballots or rejected votes.

A colluding poll worker might even contrive a reason to halt voting – imagine a poll worker “discovering” a suspicious package and calling in a bomb threat from inside, ensuring a lengthy evacuation. (To be clear, there’s no public evidence this happened, but it’s a scenario that combines the two tactics in question.)

Even without outright illegal acts, the presence of zealous election deniers on staff could create an intimidating atmosphere for voters. Remember, one Lion of Judah trainer explicitly said a poll worker “can lock the door… can kick everybody out” if they suspect wrongdoing. While laws forbid arbitrarily closing a polling place, a poll worker determined to disrupt could certainly find pretexts to pause voting (“machine malfunction,” “mysterious odor,” etc.) and call authorities. If multiple key precincts face such hiccups, it could swing a close contest by preventing votes.

Another way these actions might have affected results is by influencing the post-election canvas and certification. The Lion of Judah strategy wasn’t just about election day, but also building a case to contest the results after. By instructing their poll workers to report all “fraud” suspicions to a partisan hotline, they were effectively compiling a dossier of anecdotes to cast doubt on the vote. If the election night count in a swing state was unfavorable to Trump, this trove of “evidence” could be rolled out to demand investigations, recounts, or refusals to certify.

In fact, Standifer and others hinted at exactly that – describing their effort as preparing for chaos on election night and being ready to leverage it. “Just imagine: it’s election night. Chaos is happening… volunteers are getting kicked out… But what if we had Christians… actually the ones counting the votes?” Standifer mused, suggesting that having their people in place would help contest any “chaos.” And indeed, the group’s messaging framed their poll workers as the first step to securing victory in a contested election.

So, if the bomb threats and other disruptions created enough confusion or irregular procedures (like extended poll hours, relocated voting sites, etc.), those very Lion of Judah workers could later testify that things were amiss. That could bolster a campaign’s lawsuit or a state election board’s refusal to certify on time . In a scenario where a state’s outcome hinged on a few thousand votes, such delays or contested certifications could open the door to overturning an apparent result.

In short, from this perspective, the bomb threats and the “Trojan horse” poll workers form a one-two punch: suppress some opposition votes on Election Day, then challenge the remaining votes during the certification, potentially changing the winner in a tight race.

What we know—and don’t know

1. Names and Deployment Details

• So far, no public list of individual poll-worker names from Lion of Judah is available.

• Investigative reporting (ProPublica/Wisconsin Watch, The Guardian, New Republic) confirms that these groups recruited heavily in key swing states — including Georgia — and explicitly focused on critical counties like Cobb, Fulton, DeKalb, and Gwinnett in Georgia; Maricopa in Arizona; Dane or Milwaukee in Wisconsin; and similar counties in Michigan and Pennsylvania .

• They aimed specifically for counties “that could flip” — i.e., swing counties within swing states (often suburban and diverse locales) .

• However, because volunteer applicants are not required to declare affiliation, and counties don’t release recruiting details publicly, we don’t have a confirmed list of which individuals were deployed where.

  

2. Poll Workers Remaining Inside During Evacuation

No source confirms whether Lion of Judah–affiliated poll workers stayed inside during the approx. 30‑minute evacuations caused by bomb threats or that they exited.

• We can outline the possible risks if partisan workers remained on-site when chaos hit:
  a) Access to Ballot Equipment: Poll workers typically manage voter check‑in devices, ballot scanners, and scanners or boxes. During evacuations, this equipment is left unattended, potentially allowing a bad actor to install malware, remove memory drives, or leave behind malicious equipment.

• b) Ballot Handling: If polls were shut, poll workers might handle ballots or envelopes to transport or secure them. A partisan worker could subtly misplace, mark, or isolate certain ballots.

• c) Obstruction or Delay: A poll worker could falsely report damage or misconduct, extending the closure or justification for chaos — especially if communicated to external hotlines or allies, thus amplifying the disruption.

• d) Information Leaks & Pressure: If they maintained communication with partisan planners or “hotlines,” they could coordinate narratives or coordinate pressure for further action under the guise of “voter protection.”

This would rely on collusion among multiple people, since oversight protocols (e.g. bipartisan teams, observers, chain-of-custody rules) are designed to stop rogue behavior. However, in a tightly orchestrated operation, those safeguards may be circumvented.

3. Evidence of Deployment in Specific Georgia Counties vs. Other Swing States

• GEORGIA: There is credible evidence that Lion of Judah recruitment specifically targeted Cobb, Fulton, DeKalb, and Gwinnett — all viewed as must-flip” swing counties in metro Atlanta.

• OTHER STATES: Similarly, recruitment was documented in Maricopa (AZ), Dane/Milwaukee (WI), and key counties in Michigan and Pennsylvania — all identified as decisive in 2024 .

• THE COUNTY WAS THE TARGET: Extremist Poll Workers weren’t just targeting states; they were targeting the critical counties within those states — matching exactly the strategy described in the Courage Tour.

4. Could This Have Been a Calculated Strategy?

• Yes — absolutely plausible. Lion of Judah and allied groups described their strategy in exactly these terms — placing trained insiders in counties that matter most during elections .

• Bomb threats delivered chaos within these same counties. If insiders remained behind during evacuations, they would have unique access and opportunity to tamper, disrupt procedures, or prepare narratives.

• What we don’t know for sure:

  • Who exactly remained inside?

  • What, if anything, they did?

  • Whether any chain-of-custody protocols were breached.

While there’s no documented case of actual tampering during these incidents, the potential vulnerabilities are real — and intentionally exploited chaos would provide a wide opening.

Were the bomb threats designed to work in concert with the rogue poll workers?

Certainly, the convergence of a Trojan horse poll worker operation and a blitz of bomb threat hoaxes in key counties is a striking scenario that understandably raised concerns about election interference. It is plausible to imagine that these tactics were meant to complement each other – insiders ready to capitalize on chaos caused by external threats – and in an extremely tight race, that combination might have tipped the scales.

There are reasonable arguments that targeting primarily Democratic precincts with disruptions could have shaved off a slice of one candidate’s vote, and that having allied poll workers on the inside provided a conduit to exploit or exaggerate any irregularities.

The episode serves as a warning. It shows how far some actors are willing to go – training loyalists for years to burrow into the system, or terrorizing voters with false threats – and how crucial it is for our institutions to remain vigilant. Going forward, transparency and strong protections at the polls will be vital to ensure that such “outside the box” interference strategies never succeed in actually changing an election outcome.

Described openly as a “Trojan horse” plan targeting swing counties; bomb threats hit the same areas; the timing aligns with strategic intent. This doesn’t prove that ballots were mishandled, but it does highlight where scrutiny needs to focus: post-election audits, ballot logs, equipment tamper tags, and personnel records from those precincts on that day.

What Are We Still Missing?

• Names: Still no public names of poll workers from Lion of Judah in these counties.

• Deeper Inspection: To assess what could’ve happened during evacuations, audit records from these counties:

  • Equipment tamper logs

  • Ballot chain-of-custody reports

  • Personnel rosters for that day

• Potential Issues: During those evacuations or clean-up periods, did trained insiders:

  • Access/check or tamper with ballot scanners or memory cards?

  • Manipulate/provisionally flag ballots?

  • Coordinate narrative through “insider” fraud hotlineImpact Sources?

  

  [¹] Christian Nationalists Call on Followers to Become Muslims Election Workers in Swing States

  [²] Election Deniers Train Thousands to Be Poll Workers, Secretly Record Private Election Systems

  [³] Bomb Threats Targeted Polling Places in Battleground States on Election Day

Primary Sources & Investigative Reports

1. Substack Original Post (User Provided)
   🧾 The Warnings Ahead of the 2024 Elections – Unjust Enrichment

2. The Guardian – ‘Trojan Horse’ Poll Worker Strategy
   🧾 Christian Nationalists Call on Followers to Become Election Workers in Swing States
   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jun/02/christian-nationalist-lions-of-judah-election-workers

3. ProPublica & Wisconsin Watch – Secret Poll Worker Training & Inside Access
   🧾 Election Deniers Train Thousands to Be Poll Workers, Secretly Record Private Election Systems
   https://www.propublica.org/article/election-deniers-poll-worker-training-lions-of-judah

4. The New Republic – Inside the Lions of Judah Plan
   🧾 How the Christian Nationalist Movement Is Infiltrating Election Offices
   https://newrepublic.com/article/180139/lions-of-judah-poll-workers-christian-nationalists

5. Reuters – November 5 Bomb Threat Coverage
   🧾 Exclusive: FBI Investigating Wave of Election Day Bomb Threats Tied to Russian Addresses
   https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-investigating-election-day-bomb-threats-tied-russian-emails-2024-11-07/

6. NBC News – Bomb Threat Disruptions in 2024
   🧾 Bomb Threats Targeted Polling Places in Battleground States on Election Day
   https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/bomb-threats-target-polling-places-battleground-states-election-day-rcna128641

7. Brennan Center for Justice – Election Security Assessment
   🧾 Despite Threats and Disinformation, Election Day Was Relatively Smooth
   https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/2024-election-went-smoothly-despite-threats

8. University of Washington Center for an Informed Public – Threat Monitoring Report
   🧾 Election Day 2024 Threat Tracker Summary
   https://www.cip.uw.edu/news/election-threats-2024-summary/

9. CNN – Georgia Poll Worker Arrested for Bomb Threat Hoax
   🧾 Georgia Poll Worker Charged With Sending Bomb Threat to Elections Office
   https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/04/us/georgia-poll-worker-bomb-threat-trump-voter/index.html

10. PBS NewsHour – State Officials Respond to Threats and Misinformation
    🧾 How Election Officials Across the U.S. Are Preparing for Threats on Election Day
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-election-officials-across-the-us-are-preparing-for-threats-on-election-day