Suspicious packages were sent this week to election offices in more than 20 states, leading to an FBI investigation, triggering evacuations and rattling staff, according to a CNN survey of state offices and Associated Press reporting.

The threatening envelopes arrived as election officials across the country prepare for Saturday’s deadline to send the first ballots to overseas and military voters and as states are weeks away from the widespread start of in-person early voting and mail-in balloting.

According to CNN and AP reporting, suspicious envelopes were received by election officials, or intercepted on the way to officials in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming.

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Bell said staff are now wearing gloves while processing the mail and isolating parts of the office when they find a suspicious item that might be contaminated. An official from the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office also told CNN that, after this week’s incident, they directed staff to wear gloves while handling mail, “out of an abundance of caution.”

“When we have to take these extra measures, it really adds to the workload and it really adds to the anxiety that we have about doing our job, that really what we want to do is make sure people are able to vote,” Bell said.

Officials in Kansas and New York said in statements and interviews that, after the letters were noticed, they evacuated their offices. There are some early indications that at least some of the letters did not actually contain any dangerous chemicals or substances.

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“Clearly, this is an attempt to terrorize the public servants who run our elections,” Becker said, praising “Republicans and Democrats” who helm local election offices. “These efforts to terrorize our public servants are not succeeding, which is good news.”