“Desperate” is the main thing to know about the latest developments in the Georgia governor’s race. “Desperate” is what Democrat Stacey Abrams is calling Republican Brian Kemp’s claim that Democrats attempted to hack the state’s election systems. As in, Kemp’s allegations are “a desperate attempt on the part of my opponent to distract people" from his string of court losses on attempts to suppress the vote in his role as secretary of state, the overseer of Georgia elections.
On Sunday, Kemp had announced an investigation into the Georgia Democratic Party for a “failed attempt to hack the state's voter registration system.” Kemp and his office offered scant details for what exactly Democrats had done, but did eventually produce enough information to allow Georgia Democrats to piece together that the supposed hacking attempt was really Democrats exchanging emails about vulnerabilities in the state’s voting systems.
In the first email, a man named Richard Wright, who Democrats say is not affiliated with the party, writes to Ms. Small, whom officials identified as a Democratic Party volunteer.
In the email, Mr. Wright describes how “any file on the system” on a Georgia voter information page can be accessed through a place on the site meant for downloading sample ballots and poll cards. He also shows how an online voter registration site can be used to “download anyones[sic] data.”
Small then forwarded that email to the Democrats’ voter protection director. And that’s what Kemp—in his capacity as Georgia’s top elections official but with his name on the ballot in a tight race for governor—is saying is being investigated as a failed hacking attempt. This is not just desperate, it’s pathetic. But it’s only pathetic if you learn the details. If you just hear that Democrats are being investigated for a hacking attempt and you don’t know that the guy doing the investigating has a promotion on the line and you don’t know that the “hacking attempt” consisted of exchanging emails about how the election could be compromised … it could sound bad. Which is what Kemp is counting on. Because, again, desperate.
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