Surveillance footage shows Georgia GOP official giving access to breached voting machines
Surveillance video from the election office in rural Coffee County, Georgia, released Tuesday shows a top local Republican Party official escorting a series of conservative activists and election skeptics into the office in January 2021, along with computer experts who copied huge amounts of voting machine data.
"The recording is the latest evidence of an effort by supporters of former President Donald Trump to take sensitive data from voting equipment manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems in several states," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The footage "offers a glimpse of the lengths Trump's allies went in service of his fraudulent election claims," The Associated Press adds, and "it further shows how access allegedly was facilitated by local officials entrusted with protecting the security of elections while raising concerns about sensitive voting technology being released into the public domain."
The video shows Cathy Latham, chair of the Coffee County GOP at the time and one of 16 fake Georgia Trump electors, ushering in four technicians with Atlanta tech firm SullivanStrickler, hired by pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell to travel to Coffee County and extract software and data from the voting machines, according to court records.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Georgia secretary of state's office opened an investigation in March into "alleged unauthorized access" of voting equipment in Coffee County, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was brought into the investigation last month.
Also seen in the footage are former Coffee County elections director Misty Hampton, who resigned in February 2021; election board member Eric Chaney, who resigned last month right before a deposition in which he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Atlanta-area bail bondsman and pro-Trump election skeptic Scott Hall; Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, best known for overseeing a controversial partisan recount in Maricopa County, Arizona; and computer security consultant Jeffrey Lenberg, under scrutiny for similar voting machine incidents in New Mexico and Michigan.
The footage was released as part of a years-old lawsuit alleging Georgia's voting machines are not secure. "It looks to be a coordinated effort at the highest levels of the Trump campaign," David Cross, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told the Journal-Constitution. "What we see here is what looks to be an interstate effort to get access to the Dominion voting equipment and in particular the underlying software." State election officials say the machines are secure, with layers of protections from manipulation.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
Expressionists: a 'rousing' exhibition at the Tate Modern
The Week Recommends Show mixes 'ferociously glowing masterpieces' from Kandinsky with less well-known artwork
By The Week UK Published
-
The Mighty Five: a guide to Utah's mesmerizing national parks
The Week Recommends From Arches to Zion, you should wander them all
By Catherine Garcia, The Week US Published
-
How is your mortgage rate determined?
The Explainer The Federal Reserve is partly to blame, but so are various personal financial factors
By Becca Stanek, The Week US Published
-
'Why would anyone look to the United States as a model?'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
'Is the death penalty racist? Of course it is.'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Trump's partly stormy day in court
Speed Read Porn actress Stormy Daniels testified in graphic detail about her 2006 encounter with the former president
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
'New arrivals are more than paying for themselves'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
The Don's enablers
Opinion Even Republicans who know better won't get in Trump's way
By William Falk Published
-
'Climate studies are increasingly becoming politicized'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
What would it be like in jail for Trump if he's convicted?
Today's Big Question The Secret Service has begun grappling with how to protect a former president behind bars
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
'A financial windfall for Iranian terrorism'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published