COFFEE COUNTY, Ga. — Newly-released video shows a south Georgia election official escorting people into an election office where they copied election software.
The video raises a number of questions, including why they copied the software – and whether it could compromise the election eight weeks from now.
The video shows a local Republican leader, Cathy Latham, at the Coffee County election office in Douglas, Georgia, roughly 200 miles southwest of Atlanta. Latham is holding open the door and allowing in several people, some of whom stayed inside for hours with access to the county’s computerized computer system.
Tech experts have long said the computerized voting is vulnerable to hackers. This video seems to show evidence of how that can happen.
"They just let 'em in. Said 'come on in,' and they copied everything," said Bruce Brown, an attorney who is part of an ongoing lawsuit challenging the state's use of computerized Dominion voting machines.
"Then after they copied everything, they took it and they put it onto the internet for other people to make copies of," he accused.
Brown said this video shows the hackers who made images of Coffee County’s system on Jan. 7, 2021 – one day after a riotous crowd stormed the U.S. Capitol after an inflammatory speech by then-President Trump; he said the folks who breached the Coffee County system were likely hired by Trump attorney Sidney Powell.
Though the 2020 election is legally settled, Brown says the hack in Coffee County threatens Georgia’s upcoming election.
"People got in there and made forensic copies of the entire suite of election software that is used statewide. So, now it’s a big concern because copies of that software have been made for any number of people anywhere in the world," Brown said.
State law allows the state to sideline computerized voting and switch to hand-marked paper ballots. But state officials have fought to keep computerized voting – which the state paid hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire and which, they say, voters like using.
State officials have told 11Alive they are investigating the Coffee County breach.