Georgia’s State Election Board said on Wednesday that it has called on the FBI to assist in its ongoing investigation into a voting system breach from the 2020 presidential election.
The move comes after operatives close to former President Donald Trump had allegedly gained access to voting systems with the aid of local elections officials.
The Atlanta Constitution-Journal noted that surveillance video on Jan. 7, 2021, caught computer analysts hired by Trump’s attorney Sidney Powell visiting Coffee County’s elections office to copy a trove of software and data. President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Georgia by under 12,000 votes.
The Georgia State Election Board said the voting systems breaches in Coffee County were similar to other states.
“The conduct in Coffee County is similar to conduct in Antrim County, Michigan, and Clark County, Nevada,” elections board Chairman William Duffey Jr. said at Wednesday’s board meeting.
The board also said it was zoning in on communications between local election officials in a second Georgia county and cybersecurity firm SullivanStrickler. The Atlanta-based firm was allegedly hired by attorneys representing former Trump to access voting systems in Coffee County in January 2021.
Duffey said he had requested an update from the FBI over its involvement in the statewide probe. However, the FBI role in the investigation, if any, remains unclear.
On Tuesday, Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, testified before a grand jury in Georgia’s Fulton County in relation to his involvement in efforts to overturn results in the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating Trump’s calls with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s current Secretary of State.
With midterms on the horizon, officials in Georgia have been wrestling with a key election question: whether its voting machines are vulnerable to hacking. Last week, Raffensperger announced his office was working on upgrading voting systems.
“Voters expect to be able to trust their election officials and we rely on Georgia’s local election officials to follow the rules and laws that protect the integrity of Georgia elections,” he said in a statement.
