Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), the House Freedom Caucus chairman fighting for his political life after a close primary, expressed suspicion Thursday night about several “fires” at polling sites in his district on election day, two days earlier.
Good, whose race is still too close to call after three days, wrote on social media that “we had 3 ‘fires’ on election day in 3 precincts … Does anyone recall even 1 fire at a precinct on election day?”
In a follow-up post, he noted: “AI estimates the probability being 0.0000000318% chance.”
Good’s posts seemed to suggest the incidents Tuesday weren’t random. But in all three of the counties that Good cited, elections officials told HuffPost nothing happened except routine fire alarms going off.
“Steam from the water heater set the alarm off,” said Miriam English, the deputy registrar in Hanover County, part of Good’s 5th District in south-central Virginia.
The evacuation at a high school polling site began at roughly 11 a.m. and lasted exactly 30 minutes, she said. “There were no voters in there.”
Daniel Pense, the voter registrar in Lynchburg County, home of the evangelical Liberty University, said in a statement that a brief evacuation happened at a polling site at the university for students who live on campus, and lasted 15 minutes.
“The Chief of that precinct called to tell me of this alarm and that they needed to evacuate the precinct. He also told me that it was reported to him that there was not a fire, but that the alarm was triggered by cleaning equipment being used in the building,” Pense said.
Good’s campaign acknowledged to HuffPost on Friday that no fires actually happened, only fire alarms.
“They were fire alarms [and] they went off resulting in polling locations being evacuated until the alarms were checked out,” Diana Shores, Good’s campaign manager, said in an email. “We don’t have any further information.”
When asked specifically if Good is suggesting that his primary opponent, state Sen. John McGuire, had something to do with the fire alarms going off on election day, Shores demurred.
“No one is suggesting anything,” she said. “Just stating the fact that three precincts were evacuated due to fire alarms going off. We don’t know anything further at this time. We are focused on our canvassing observation efforts.”
McGuire did not respond to a request for comment about whether he had anything to do with these quote-unquote “fires” at precincts.
Good is currently trailing McGuire by more than 300 votes after making enemies of both former President Donald Trump and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). If Good loses, he’ll be the first House Republican to go down in a contested primary this cycle.
The GOP congressman cited these election day “fires” in Albemarle, Hanover and Lynchburg counties. McGuire leads Good in two of the three counties.
Good is no stranger to election objections. He’s one of the congressional Republicans who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in several swing states after raising concerns about election integrity in those states. There was never evidence of the widespread voter fraud that Trump and his supporters alleged.