Suspicious device found at Ankeny polling place confirmed as live pipe bomb
Yesterday, several municipalities in central Iowa held special elections related to city and/or school matters. In Ankeny, Iowa, a suburb on the north side of Des Moines, the election in question was regarding approval of updated plans on school district spending. On the morning of the election, a live pipe bomb was discovered in the parking lot of one polling place. The device was safely detonated by authorities, but voting was disrupted at the location for several hours. Volunteers and voters were safely evacuated and voters were redirected to alternate polling locations.
Authorities have cautioned that they have no evidence yet regarding motive or even how long the pipe bomb may have been at the location, but let’s be serious — people don’t just leave pipe bombs lying around if they don’t think there will be any traffic, and it seems unlikely that someone would have just left a bomb at a polling site days beforehand and no one would have spotted it.
So...make of it what you will. It was a local issue vote about school spending, which seems an odd choice for such an act, but perhaps someone has a particular grudge against the school district, or is a “freedumb fighter” of the stripe who sees any taxation as slavery, or maybe they’re just a sick individual wanting to hurt people and this was a target of opportunity to try.
We can hope that there will be enough evidence that authorities can track it back to the creator before they attempt something like this again.