At the request and direction of former President Donald Trump’s attorney, a group of Trump supporters, including election officials and a former GOP chair, gained access to voting machines in Georgia and then made copies of reams of the sensitive election documents they found.
According to reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), the Jan. 7, 2021, breach was uncovered in response to a subpoena served by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI).
Trump attorney Sidney Powell coordinated the infiltration and was billed $26,000 from Atlanta-based tech firm SullivanStrickler. AJC reports that a MAGA group flew from Atlanta to Coffee County in South Georgia, where local election officials gave them access to voting equipment. Computer trespass in Georgia is a felony; a conviction could carry a $50,000 fine and up to 15 years behind bars—or both.
Trump won in Coffee County in 2020 by 70%.
RELATED STORY: Nationwide trend of Trump supporters getting unauthorized access to voting machines
Campaign Action
“Sidney, everything went smoothly yesterday with the Coffee County collection. Everyone involved was extremely helpful,” Paul Maggio, chief operating officer for SullivanStrickler, wrote to Powell. “We are consolidating all of the data collected and will be uploading it to our secure site for access by your team. Hopefully, we can take care of payment today.”
Marilyn Marks is a plaintiff in the lawsuit that sought the subpoenas. She is the Executive Director of Coalition for Good Governance, a non-partisan non-profit organization dedicated to transparent government and evidence-based elections.
Marks tells the AJC that, based on the information gathered from the subpoenas, Georgia’s election system can be easily compromised. She argues for switching from touchscreen voting to paper ballots.
“It is imperative that they turn their attention to hand-marked paper ballots using emergency procedures for November because the entire state of Georgia’s software is out there in the wild. … This takes away all of their excuses to stick with ballot-marking devices.”
Marks is at the center of the infamous Curling v. Kemp lawsuit against Georgia’s election officials to end the state’s use of touchscreen electronic equipment.
The subpoena also reveals that local Coffee County election officials assisted the Trump supporters in copying the voter information, including memory cards, ballot scanners, ballot images, and an election management server.
The local officials who handed over the information include election board member Eric Chaney, former county Election Director Misty Hampton, and former county Republican Party Chairwoman Cathy Latham, who also posed as a fake elector for the Georgia GOP in 2020, per AJC.
The MAGA group that snuck into Coffee County are some of the same people who weaseled their way into local election offices around the country.
The breaches have become so ubiquitous that on Aug. 12, the Brennan Center for Justice released a statement warning local election offices about it and advising them what to do.
It reads in part:
“Insider threats are not a new phenomenon in election security. But the current participation of election deniers in the election process, and active recruitment of more, has sparked an increase in breaches of the physical security of election equipment. Election officials have an affirmative obligation to implement steps to prevent and detect unauthorized access to voting systems, and if a breach does occur, to take remedial action to address any harm that the breach may cause.”
Lawrence Norden, director of elections and government for the Brennan Center, told The Washington Post, “It is super important for election officials to know these breaches of election security are occurring and that there have been swift and strong reactions to it. … We want to be sure local election officials know they have an obligation to detect and quickly take remedial action if a breach occurs.”
