Citing no evidence, Kemp's office launches investigation of Democratic Party of Georgia

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published 5 November 2018

On Sunday, the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp announced it is investigating the Democratic Party of Georgia over an alleged attempted hack of the state's voter registration system.

Kemp is also the Republican gubernatorial candidate, and his office did not provide any evidence or say why the state's Democratic Party is being investigated as part of the probe. For months, people have been calling on Kemp to step down from his role overseeing the election that he is running in, and the Democratic Party of Georgia said in a statement this is "yet another example of abuse of power by an unethical secretary of state," adding his "scurrilous claims are 100 percent false." Kemp's office said the FBI and Department of Homeland Security have been notified.

The announcement comes just two days before Election Day, and this is "problematic," Edgardo Cortes, Georgia's former elections commissioner, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It all just sounds very strange," he said, noting that Kemp's office said no personal data was breached in the alleged cyber attack and the system is secure. "It is kind of hard to make that determination without actually going through and doing a thorough investigation," he said. Read more about Kemp's office, and earlier hacks and breaches that it did not take seriously, at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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