Duval County elections officials temporarily closed Precinct 706 at the Beaver Street Enterprise Center on Tuesday after a suspicious item was reported in the parking lot until a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office bomb squad ensured there was no danger, allowing voting to resume.

Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland said the incident, which occurred around midday, required coordination with JSO.

Holland said elections officials redirected voters to his downtown office to cast ballots while the area was cordoned off.

He said he texted Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters at 12:18 p.m., and before 1 p.m., the area was already cleared.

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Officer Christian Hancock said in a text message that the suspicious item “turned out to be a trunk type box. It was rendered safe. And the polling location reopened.”

Hancock said this did not classify as a bomb threat.

Holland emphasized that there was ultimately “nothing in the suspicious package that was dangerous.”

“We were able to pull the equipment out,” Holland said, describing how the team initially tried to continue the voting process outside before police blocked off the street. Election workers redirected voters who arrived during the closure to the downtown office, ensuring they could still cast their ballots.

Holland said there was no lunchtime spike in voting traffic elsewhere in the county, so he’s not worried that a large number of voters were unable to cast ballots.

Poll workers didn’t call in the suspicious package, Holland said, and he said there’s no way to determine who reported it. “Somebody could’ve had a serious concern, or it could’ve been a prank,” he said.

Holland praised the coordination between his office and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. “We’ve got a fantastic working relationship,” he said, adding that the swift resolution allowed the precinct to resume service with minimal disruption.