Manchester, Maine - Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a statement posted to Facebook on Saturday that she was targeted by a fake emergency call which led to the police arriving at her Manchester home.

A wave of threats has surged against Bellows and others since Donald Trump was removed from the 2024 primary ballot in Maine on Thursday.

Bellows wrote in her Facebook statement that she had been "swatted" on Friday after her home address was posted online by a conservative activist.

"Swatting" is a somewhat newer term meaning that a false emergency call to a personal residence had been made in bad faith by outside parties in order to bring the SWAT team to their house.

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In the age of the internet, this has become an all-too-common and potentially dangerous form of online harassment.

"Many of you have asked if Brandon and I are safe," the Bellows wrote. "We are away for the holiday weekend. We were not home yesterday when threats escalated, and our home address was posted online."

"It was a good thing because our home was swatted last night," she added.

Maine State Police said that an unknown male called a regional communication center on Friday night claiming to have broken into a home in the Augusta area, which police confirmed to be Bellows' place of residence, per local station WGME13. When officers arrived, they found the home to be empty, although an investigation into the incident is still ongoing.

Three other Republican members of Congress – Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Rep. Brandon Williams of New York – have claimed to be targets of swatting incidents as well this week. No one was harmed in any of the incidents.

Bellows ruled in favor of taking Trump off of Maine's presidential ballot on Thursday, saying that the former president did not meet the constitutional requirements for holding high office after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. She made this call on the grounds that acts of insurrection violate the 14th Amendment.

Trump lashed out about the decision, posting a link to Bellows' biographical info to his Truth Social account, writing, "Fisherman, Loggers, & Lobsterman, who voted for President Trump overwhelmingly, are furious with this non-Lawyer Sec. of State."

In an interview with the Associated Press, Bellows voiced her belief that the swatting incident stemmed from her decision to remove Trump from the presidential ballot in Maine.

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Bellows said that her home address "was posted in anger and with violent intent by those who have been extending threatening communications toward me, my family and my office."

She further denounced the swatting and threats in a Saturday post, writing, "This behavior is unacceptable. The non-stop threatening communications the people who work for me endured all day yesterday is unacceptable."

"It’s designed to scare not only me but also others into silence, to send a message," she said.