Inside the Arizona county rattled by bomb threats, where armed men guard the ballots and snipers are on the rooftops

Flashing blue lights illuminated the dark streets of downtown Phoenix. Police cordoned off parts of the road while a drone hovered high above. Police have been scouring the scene and investigating a bomb threat in the heart of Arizona.

These were the scenes in Maricopa County last night as the votes poured in, the air thick with suspicion, fear and anxiety.

This county has long been seen as a tinderbox in a country smoldering with political resentment and division. It was ground zero for Donald Trump’s ‘big lie’ – the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen – where an armed mob took to the streets four years ago in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state .

America was on a knife’s edge last night – and this morning, despite Donald Trump’s landslide victory, the US remains dangerously divided, with rival Republican and Democratic camps accusing each other of violent rhetoric… and worse.

The atmosphere in the city was so tense that just minutes before the end of last night’s elections, snipers were on standby in case trouble broke out.

Maricopa is the fourth largest county in America with 4.5 million residents and was previously Republican. Biden was the first Democrat to win the election since Harry S. Truman in 1948.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Trump was reportedly leading by nearly four percentage points, with about 60 percent of the votes counted.

Officials have warned that it could take as long as two weeks to count all the votes in a county that could decide which way Arizona goes.

Nearly 160 polling places, one Republican and the other Democrat, work around the clock in three shifts to deliver results from the 249 voting centers once the ballot boxes – delivered by armed guards – are emptied.

Meanwhile, the warning in Maricopa County — which targeted the Superior Court Building — was just one of five bomb threats made by email yesterday in the Grand Canyon State.

At a news conference, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the emailed bomb threats were false — and that while they came from an email address linked to Russia, they were not necessarily from abroad came from.

“The motivation appears to be to incite chaos, not influence any political outcome,” he said. And in a place like the melting pot of Maricopa County, that goal was certainly achieved.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, one of the senior officials charged with ensuring the proper conduct of the election, had particular cause for concern.

It was his office – located in the provincial Supreme Court building – that was targeted.

Richer worked closely with County Supervisor Bill Gates, a man who ran his last election after deciding to quit following a PTSD diagnosis, itself the result of sickening death threats four years ago.

At the time, gunmen gathered outside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, where votes are being counted, spurred by conspiracy theories after Trump lost to Joe Biden by a narrow margin, less than 11,000 votes.

An anonymous caller later threatened Gates with “execution” by firing squad. Another said they would rape his daughter. Richer also received death threats.

The vote among the province’s 2.6 million active registered voters remains charged, which is why authorities have not taken any chances this year.

Sheriff Russ Skinner promised to deploy snipers and SWAT teams if law and order collapsed.

“We are on high alert… we have a lot of resources, a lot of personnel, a lot of equipment,” he warned. ‘We hope people don’t cross the border. There will be zero tolerance for anything related to criminal activity…

“As for the snipers, all my staff are on call. Do I have snipers on standby? Absolute.’

There was barbed wire at the back of the election center. New fencing surrounded the site and concrete blocks prevented vehicles from entering.

Concerned voter Scott Eller cast his ballot at the downtown Burton Barr Library voting center and called for calm and common sense.

“I believe in the Second Amendment, so I know very well how to protect myself. But I am not willing to fight for either side in such an extreme way,” he told us.

“So I just have to hope that common sense wins out and that we can all have a smooth transition of power or maintenance of power.” But I have no idea if that will happen, or what will happen here.

‘Let’s hope cooler heads will prevail. We must now call for calm. The division in our country had reached an extreme level. Our politicians have taken it to a level that doesn’t feel healthy.”

Eller, a 51-year-old pet food company boss, declined to say who he was voting for.

“I live here in a swing state and my views are probably a bit liberal, but I’m from rural southern North Carolina,” he continued.

“Most of my family sits on one side of the aisle. I’m more somewhere in the middle. Most of my friends are on the other side of that aisle.

‘So I spend a lot of time with people with extreme positions on both sides and I often feel like the odd one out. But I see the very real frustration on both sides.”

Last night, Donald Trump promised to “heal” a divided America in his victory speech. Citizens of Maricopa County – and elsewhere in the Republic – are praying he succeeds.