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A12 TECHNOLOGY
Monday 26 SepteMber 2022

Georgia voting equipment breach at

center of tangled tale

ent involvement.
The new information has
made Coffee County,
where Trump won nearly
70% of the vote two years
ago, a focal point of con-
cerns over the security of
voting machines. While
there is no evidence of
widespread problems with
voting equipment in 2020,
some Trump supporters
have spread false informa-
This Jan. 7, 2021, image taken from Coffee County, Ga., security tion about machines and
video, appears to show Cathy Latham (center, long turquoise the election outcome.
top), introducing members of a computer forensic team to local
election officials. Latham was the county Republican Party chair
at the time. Election security experts
and activists fear state
Associated Press to the head of an election election officials haven’t
By Kate Brumback security advocacy group acted fast enough in the
ATLANTA (AP) — The tale involved in a long-running face of what they see as a
of breached voting equip- lawsuit targeting the state’s real threat.
ment in one of the coun- voting machines. The copying of the soft-
try’s most important po- According to a record- ware and its availability for
litical battleground states ing filed in court earlier this download means potential
involves a bail bondsman, year, the bail bondsman bad actors could build ex-
a prominent attorney tied said he’d chartered a jet act copies of the Domin-
to former President Don- and was with a computer ion system to test different
ald Trump’s attempts to forensics team at the Cof- types of attacks, said Uni-
overturn the 2020 presiden- fee County elections office versity of California, Berke-
tial election and a cast of when they “imaged every ley computer scientist Philip
characters from a rural hard drive of every piece Stark, an expert witness for
county that rarely draws of equipment.” the plaintiffs in the voting
notice from outsiders. That happened on Jan. 7, machines lawsuit.
How they all came together 2021, a day after the vio- “This is like bank robbers
and what it could mean for lent insurrection at the U.S. having an exact replica of
the security of voting in the Capitol and two days after the vault that they’re trying
upcoming midterm elec- a runoff election in which to break into,” he said.
tions are questions tangled Democrats swept both Stark said the risks could be
up in a lawsuit and state of Georgia’s U.S. Senate minimized by using hand-
investigations that have seats. marked paper ballots and
prompted calls to ditch the The trip to Coffee County, rigorous audits. Dominion
machines altogether. about 200 miles south of says its equipment remains
Details of the unauthorized Atlanta, to copy data and secure.
access of sensitive vot- software from elections Marilyn Marks, executive
ing equipment in Coffee equipment was directed director of the Coalition
County, Georgia, became by attorney Sidney Pow- for Good Governance, the
public last month when ell and other Trump allies, group that sued over the
documents and emails re- according to deposition state’s voting machines,
vealed the involvement testimony and documents said the state has been
of high-profile Trump sup- produced in response to slow to investigate. She was
porters. That’s also when it subpoenas. on the receiving end of the
caught the attention of an Later that month, security phone call from the bail
Atlanta-based prosecutor camera footage shows, bondsman.
who is leading a separate two men who have partici- The state, she said, has
investigation of Trump’s ef- pated in efforts to question been “repeatedly looking
forts to undo his loss in the the results of the 2020 elec- the other way when faced
state. tion in several states spent with flashing red lights of se-
Since then, revelations days going in and out of rious voting system security
about what happened the Coffee County elec- problems.”
in the county of 43,000 tions office. State officials say they’re
people have raised ques- The footage also shows lo- confident the election
tions about whether the cal election and Republi- system is safe. All Coffee
Dominion Voting Systems can Party officials welcom- County election equip-
machines used in Georgia ing the visitors and allowing ment that wasn’t already
have been compromised. them access to the elec- replaced will be swapped
The public disclosure of the tion equipment. The video out before early voting be-
breach began with a ram- seems to contradict state- gins next month, the sec-
bling phone call from an At- ments some of the officials retary of state’s office said
lanta-area bail bondsman made about their appar- Friday.q