Just as the Special Counsel was cracking the Russia investigation like a nut, another major scandal regarding an election was revealed, and it’s important to remember that this is a danger for Democrats and the legions of Republicans who are leaving their own party this November in order to defeat the dangerous and immoral policies of the Trump administration.
NBC News reported almost exactly one year after the presidential election that the Georgia attorney general’s office was abandoning state election officials during a lawsuit involving a computer server that was wiped three days after that lawsuit was filed. This purpose of the lawsuit was to eliminate touchscreen voting technology in Georgia because it does not leave a paper trail that can be examined and audited — and because after finding out that Russian data analytics hackers had accessed state election systems, they are all in danger of being exploited as they were in 2016.
The server in question had already been in the news in June 2017, after a security expert identified a major security issue that persisted for half the year without being fixed, after it was reported to election authorities. That meant that for the more than 6 million voters in the state of Georgia, their personal information was subject to exploitation, as well as the passwords for accessing the files.
Christina Correia, the assistant state AG overseeing the case, told the court that her office would no longer be providing defense in the case. Her spokeswoman Katelyn McCreary offered little explanation except to say she couldn’t make remarks “on pending matters.”
The assistant AG had previously stated that data on the server was wiped early in July by techs at the Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University. The destroyed data was critical in the investigation as to whether the special election in Georgia had been hacked in any way — which may have cheated Democrat Jon Ossoff out of a win and illegitimately given the election to Republican Karen Handel.
Secretary of State Brian Kemp is a Republican running for governor this year, and his election is today. He has the strong support of President Trump:
Today is the day to vote for Brian Kemp. Will be great for Georgia, full Endorsement! https://t.co/yPND2bJ219
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2018
Kemp strenuously denied at the time that he knew anything about the impending data destruction. His office issued a statement that Kennesaw State officials had followed “standard IT practices” and that their actions “were not undertaken to delete evidence.” Many were skeptical, however, since Kemp’s office had originally stated that Kennesaw State’s erasure of the data was “reckless.”
The plaintiff in the case is Executive Director Marilyn Marks of the Coalition for Good Governance, who said that the withdrawal of Correia’s office was shocking, but not unexpected. She knew that Kemp had been hiding information. She said:
There have been multiple conflicting stories of how and when the evidence on the servers was destroyed.”
Republicans should be just as worried about scandals corrupting the future of the GOP as Democrats should be that the Republicans might succeed.
Featured image via atlexplorer/Flickr
