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A4 U.S. NEWS
Saturday 27 July 2019

Georgia election officials accused of destroying evidence

By KATE BRUMBACK secretary of state’s office. ity of the state’s election 2020 presidential election. possible burden” on state
Associated Press Fortalice CEO Theresa Pay- system and scolded state But the state still plans to and local election officials.
ATLANTA (AP) — In a fed- ton testified that her team officials for being slow to re- use the current machines In their brief Thursday, law-
eral court filing, lawyers did find serious risks in their spond to evidence of those for special and municipal yers for the Coalition for
for election integrity ad- Good Governance ac-
vocates accuse Georgia cused state officials of de-
election officials of inten- stroying computer servers
tionally destroying evi- from the Center for Election
dence that could show un- Systems at Kennesaw State
authorized access to the University after a security
state election system and hole there that exposed
potential manipulation of Georgia voters’ personal
election results. data and passwords used
Election integrity advo- by county election officials
cates and individual Geor- was discovered. State law-
gia voters sued election yers then failed to ask the
officials in 2017 alleging FBI for a copy of a forensic
that the touchscreen vot- image the agency made
ing machines Georgia has of the server before it was
used since 2002 are un- wiped, despite saying they
secure and vulnerable to would, they say.
hacking. In a court filing The brief also accuses state
Thursday, they said state officials and their lawyers
officials began destroying of deleting and overwriting
evidence within days of data preserved on voting
the suit’s filing and contin- machine memories and on
ued to do so as the case memory cards used to pro-
moved forward. gram the voting machines.
“The evidence strongly sug- “After abundant notice
gests that the State’s ama- of their well-known duty
teurish protection of criti- to preserve evidence, the
cal election infrastructure State Defendants did not
placed Georgia’s election simply neglect to disable
system at risk, and the State some automated purge
Defendants now appear function in their IT systems.
to be desperate to cover- Rather, they intention-
up the effects of their mis- ally and calculatingly de-
feasance — to the point of stroyed evidence,” the
destroying evidence,” the brief says.
filing says. “Surely, to engage in con-
A spokeswoman for the duct so odious that any
secretary of state’s office, junior lawyer would know
which oversees elections, it would expose them to
denied the allegations. sanctions, the evidence
The brief was filed Thursday so disposed of must have
as U.S. District Judge Amy been damning in the ex-
Totenberg was holding a treme.”
hearing on requests by the Secretary of state’s office
plaintiffs that she order the spokeswoman Tess Ham-
state to immediately stop This May 22, 2018, file photo, shows a voter access card inserted in a reader during voting in the mock said allegations of
using its current voting ma- Georgia primary in Kennesaw, Ga. destroying evidence are
chines and switch to hand- Associated Press false.
marked paper ballots. That “We look forward to vigor-
hearing continued Friday. initial 2017 assessment but problems, and on Thursday elections this year and the ously defending ourselves
In court Thursday, lawyers also said the secretary of said she still has “worries plaintiffs fear the outdated from these spurious allega-
for the plaintiffs highlighted state’s office had made about the integrity of the machines will also be used tions meant to distract the
weaknesses identified in progress toward fixing the voting data system.” in 2020 if a new system isn’t Court from the fact that
risk assessment reports by problems by the time of a Georgia’s voting system implemented in time. there is no evidence that
Fortalice Solutions, a cyber- subsequent review last No- drew national scrutiny last Lawyers for the state have supports plaintiffs’ outland-
security firm hired by the vember. year during the closely argued in court filings that ish theories,” she wrote in
The plaintiffs’ lawyers point- watched governor’s race new security measures an email.
ed out, however, that the in which Brian Kemp, a have been put in place Many of the allegations
assessment only covered Republican who was the to protect the existing sys- stem from the time when
general cybersecurity in state’s top election official tem, that the implemen- Kemp was secretary of
the office and that For- at the time, narrowly de- tation of a new voting sys- state before he became
talice wasn’t asked to look feated Democrat Stacey tem addresses the judge’s governor. Governor’s office
at potential risks for elec- Abrams. concerns and that putting spokeswoman, Candice
tion management systems A law passed this year and an intermediate hand- Broce, declined to com-
or voting machines. signed by Kemp provides marked paper ballot sys- ment, referring questions to
Judge Totenberg has previ- specifications for a new tem in place while the state lawyers for state election
ously expressed grave con- system, which state officials is moving to a new voting officials, who also declined
cerns about the vulnerabil- said will be in place for the system would be “an im- to comment.q