ICYMI – The FBI was called in for a criminal investigation of a breach in the Coffee County, Georgia voting system by the State Board of Elections according to reporting.
The Washington Examiner reported that the board pointed to similar breaches in other states and requested collaboration with the FBI as it examines communications that took place between officials in Spalding County and SullivanStrickler, an IT Services company specializing in forensic data recovery and investigations according to their website.
“The conduct in Coffee County is similar to conduct in Antrim County, Michigan, and Clark County, Nevada,” elections board Chairman William Duffey Jr. said.
According to The Examiner, “The board has received documents that include an “unexecuted engagement agreement” for Sullivan Strickler to forensically image voting systems in Spalding County, Georgia, Duffey said. The move represents an escalation by state investigators in Georgia, raising new questions about whether the same group of individuals involved in the Coffee County breach sought access to voting systems in other parts of the state as well.”
Duffy told the Examiner that it is still unclear why Spalding County sought to have SullivanStrickler engage in that type of work but the board is investigating whether it had any connection to what happened in Coffee County. He added that it is unclear if the voting systems in Spalding County were in fact breached. Further, Duffey made note that he requested an update from the FBI on the status of the investigation.
“We did not image any equipment in Spalding County,” a SullivanStrickler attorney said. “We will continue to cooperate with law enforcement on any investigation as we have done up until now.”
According to The Associated Press, the officials planned to replace the county’s voting equipment after an incident of “unauthorized access” to it two months before the 2020 election.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told the media, that an investigation at the state level is ongoing.
“Anyone who broke the law should be punished to its full extent,” he said in a news release. “But the current election officials in Coffee County have to move forward with the 2022 election, and they should be able to do so without this distraction.”
