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Reports warn of extremist threat around election

U.S. security officials are warning that violent domestic extremists pose a threat to the presidential election next month, amid what one official called a "witch's brew" of rising political tensions, civil unrest and foreign disinformation campaigns.

FBI and Department of Homeland Security memos say threats by domestic extremists with varying ideologies to election-related targets will likely increase in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election.

Those warnings so far have largely remained internal. But New Jersey's homeland security office took the unusual step of publicly highlighting the threat in a little-noticed report on its website last week, saying: "You have this witch’s brew that really hasn’t happened in America’s history."

The report outlines three possible scenarios for the November election: a quick result, a protracted process where determining a winner takes months and a legal battle that eventually goes to the Supreme Court. The assessment concludes that each of the scenarios could lead to extremist violence, with the possibility of deadly confrontations.

In recent months, some protests over racial injustice and police brutality have led to violent confrontations, including between extremist factions from the left and right.

The recent clashes come amid a global health crisis, high unemployment and a contentious presidential election, during which President Donald Trump has repeatedly linked mail-in ballots to voter fraud without providing evidence.

So far, Trump and his top officials have not publicly highlighted any threat by violent extremist groups to the election. Trump officials have pointed the finger at left-wing activists and 'antifa' during protests over the summer, but federal court records provide little evidence showing those arrested for violence had affiliations to far-left groups.

Last week, the top two DHS officials acknowledged in congressional hearings, however, that white supremacists have posed the most lethal domestic threat to the United States in recent years.