In this Jan. 19, 2021 image taken from Coffee County, Ga., security video, Cathy Latham, bottom, who was the chair of the Coffee County Republican Party at the time, greets a team of computer experts from data solutions company SullivanStrickler at the county elections office in Douglas, Ga. Records show that the team traveled to the rural south Georgia county to copy software and data from elections equipment. The Georgia secretary of state's office has said the visit was an "alleged unauthorized access" of election equipment. (Coffee County via AP)
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ATLANTA (AP) — Two months after the 2020 presidential election, a team of computer experts traveled to south Georgia to copy software and data from voting equipment in an apparent breach of a county election system. They were greeted outside by the head of the local Republican Party, who was involved in efforts by then-President Donald Trump to overturn his election loss.
A security camera outside the elections office in rural Coffee County captured their arrival. The footage also shows that some local election officials were at the office during what the Georgia secretary of state’s office has described as “alleged unauthorized access” of election equipment.
Security footage from two weeks later raises additional alarms — showing two people who were instrumental in Trump’s wider efforts to undermine the election results entering the office and staying for hours.
The security video from the elections office in the county about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta offers a glimpse of the lengths Trump’s allies went to in service of his fraudulent election claims. It further shows how access was facilitated by local officials who are entrusted with protecting the security of elections while raising concerns about sensitive voting technology being released into the public domain.
Georgia wasn’t the only state where voting equipment was accessed after the 2020 presidential election. Important information about voting systems also was compromised in election offices in Pennsylvania,Michigan and Colorado. Election security experts worry the information obtained — including complete copies of hard drives — could be exploited by those who want to interfere with future elections.
“The system is only as secure as the people who are entrusted to keep it secure,” said lawyer David Cross, who represents plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit over Georgia’s voting machines.
The Coffee County security footage was obtained through that lawsuit, which alleges that Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines are vulnerable to attack and should be replaced by hand-marked paper ballots. The suit long predates and is unrelated to false allegations of widespread election fraud pushed by Trump and his allies after the 2020 election.
