chevron.removeClass('fa-chevron-up'); Cathy Latham, who also played a key role in the copying of election data in Coffee County, filed the motion Friday, Mistrial declared on murder charge for man accused of killing Tori Lang; guilty on three other counts, Johns Creek firefighters battle house fire, only structure remains, Weekly weather update April 28 | Forecast in metro Atlanta. The district attorney in Atlanta is seeking to build a broad conspiracy case that encompasses multifaceted efforts by Trump allies to disrupt and overturn the 2020 election. border: none !important; She said she could not recall the circumstances of his visit. Privacy Policy How to vote | At 3:48 p.m., Hampton updated the GOP chair. Even more coincidentally, Coffee County has deleted all emails of their election officials from that period, and improperly gave Secretary Raffenspergers office all of their 2020 electronic election records, wiping the county clean of evidence of what occurred. I told her, You sit over there. I dont see why anything that is dealing with elections is not open to the public, Hampton said. VoterInfobyState_Timeout_dom = setTimeout(widget_load_check_dom, 500); Yay!, said Trump attorney Katherine Friess in a Jan. 1, 2021 text message. Mr. Trump won nearly 70 percent of Coffee County, which is home to just U.S. Congress | Find 6 Boards Of Elections within 31.3 miles of Coffee County Board of Elections. Report: Atlanta jury in Trump, 2020 election investigation recommended multiple indictments, Testimony ties Trump to Coffee County breach. WebTo use the GA SOS VR platform, you will need to upgrade or switch to another web browser. if (typeof VoterInfobyState_Toggle === 'undefined') { At 4:26 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, she texted Chaney that Hall was discussing the possibility of scanning our ballots from the general election like we talked about the other day, according to the text messages. if ($('#vis_xs_indicator').is(':hidden')){ There are a variety of avenues the state has to bring criminal charges, said David D. Cross, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit brought by civic groups against the Georgia secretary of states office over election security. You dont know whats going on, Hampton recalled. Incumbent Katherine Paulk ran in the Republican primary for Coffee County Solicitor General on May 24, 2022. The next day, Chaney asked her to switch to Signal, the encrypted messaging app, according to the messages. State legislature | Coffee County, Georgia, held elections for local offices in 2022. And they said, We give you permission. Details continue to emerge from other places where outsiders may have sought access to voting machines. Atlanta, GA 30318 } else { You know, all the poll pads, everything, he responded. LISTEN: Ed Lindsey speaks on the length of the investigation. Hampton made a video that went viral soon after the election, claiming to show that Dominion Voting System machines, the ones used in her county, could be manipulated. How could somebody sneak here? Marissa Goldberg, an Atlanta-area lawyer representing Mr. Trump in Georgia, did not respond to a request for comment. She said she believed she was pushed out because she had made the video criticizing Dominion machines. Insider threat, while always part of the threat matrix, is now a reality in elections, said Matt Masterson, who previously served as a senior U.S. cybersecurity official tracking 2020 election integrity for the Department of Homeland Security. She is excited to tell stories in Georgia's diverse political landscape. As recently reported in the New York Times, for example, the Trump allies As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. .sample-ballot-mobile-promo, .mobile-app-cta { Mr. Wood, prosecutors wrote, stated that he and a group of other Trump supporters, including Ms. Powell and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, met at the plantation to explore options to influence the results of the 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.. #SPDTraffic ROAD CLOSURE: Coffee Bluff Road is closed to all traffic south of Vernon River Drive due to downed power lines Chase McGee is a Gwinnett County native and graduate of the University of Georgia. One, in Mesa County, Colorado, has already led to an indictment. A Trump supporter protested election results at the Georgia State Capitol in 2020. Concerns about unauthorized access to these machines could receive a jolt, given the latest assessment by the Department of Homeland Securitys Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. In December 2020, plaintiffs in a lawsuit in Antrim County, Mich., were permitted by a state judge to copy Dominion voting equipment. $("div.vis_widget_title").each(function(index) { In Michigan, state police are investigating an alleged breach of voting equipment after the 2020 election in Roscommon County. The local news website Douglas Now covered their resignations in early March. Incumbents are bolded and underlined . color: white; If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why Start the day with the top stories from the US, plus the days must-reads from across the Guardian. WebRT @MuellerSheWrote: In January, 2021, two men named Scott Hall and Paul Maggio were escorted into the Coffee County Georgia elections office by one of the Georgia fraudulent electors (Cathy Latham) where they stole voting data from a voting machine at the direction of Sidney Powell. } Marks, stunned by what she began to hear, started recording the call. County Office is not affiliated with any government agency. In an email county lawyers forwarded to The Post, Chaney wrote that he does not know Hall and was not present when anyone illegally accessed the server or the room in which it is contained. Responding later to inquiries about the text messages, he wrote, I have no personal recollection of what youre asking.. We also provide race overviews if you want additional background information. There are specific laws in Georgia that prevent access to voting equipment in particular, he said, as well as general laws about accessing computer equipment that doesnt belong to you.. Mr. Hall said that the team had the blessing of the local elections board and scanned all the equipment, imaged all the hard drives and scanned every single ballot.. On Jan. 7, 2021, a small group working on behalf of Mr. Trump traveled to rural Coffee County, Ga., some 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, and gained access to sensitive election data; subsequent visits by pro-Trump figures were captured on video surveillance cameras. Hampton said she resigned from her elections job under pressure in February 2021. If you are a user of our Sample Ballot, and you are experiencing problems using it or notice any accuracy issue of any kind at all, it would be a huge help to our future readers and users if you would send us a note telling us about the problem. }. Mr. Trump won nearly 70 percent of Coffee County, which is home to just 43,000 people. What was the absentee/mail-in ballot return deadline? In several instances since 2020, machines have been taken out of service after their chain of custody was interrupted. The voting rights organizations had filed a preliminary injunction before the 2022 election to lift restrictions on line relief, including handing out free food, water, and other provisions to voters in line. Federal courts | Because these idiots are being idiots, when they do these copies they leaveas they did in Mesa Countyevidence that this computer has been tampered with, said Hursti, the Finnish computer programmer. His company had been hired by Sidney Powell, a conspiracy theorist and lawyer advising Mr. Trump, who was tasked with scouring voting systems in Georgia and other states. This Jan. 7, 2021, image taken from Coffee County, Ga., security video, appears to show Cathy Latham (center, long turquoise top), introducing members of a computer forensic team to local election officials. Use the table below to view the total number of each type of county in Georgia following the 2020 election as well as the overall percentage of the state population located in each county type. Hampton said she could not remember when the visit occurred or what Hall and the others did when they were there. WebRT @MuellerSheWrote: In January, 2021, two men named Scott Hall and Paul Maggio were escorted into the Coffee County Georgia elections office by one of the Georgia fraudulent electors (Cathy Latham) where they stole voting data from a voting machine at the direction of Sidney Powell. display: none; 2/ 01 May 2023 05:36:38 | Harvey, who left the secretary of states office three weeks later, said in an interview that he did not recall details of the events in question. } else { They said state officials have not found evidence of a security breach. If someone got access to it, then their whole defense is eviscerated.. Other attendees offered similar testimony to the committee, which released its final report on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in late December. Surveillance video shows Latham opening the door for people entering One cybersecurity consultant aiding in the effort even raised the possibility, in a text message to other Trump allies in mid-January 2021, of using a report on Coffee County election data to try to decertify a highly consequential United States Senate runoff election that Democrats had just won in Georgia. Now that Halls mission was unraveling in the public eye, he reached out to an election rights activist to recount his experience in Douglas. (and fax number, if available) of the County Election Office. Ballot measures, Who represents me? Former President Trump at a rally in Waco, Texas, in March. But whats really driving anxiety is that their sloppy computer work will itself plant evidence of tampering that fuels the Big Lie. Did Trump send a team? Elections in 2023 | A spokeswoman for Carr told The Post this week that the review remains active and ongoing.. The most obvious question in American politics today should be: why is the guy who committed treason just over two years ago allowed to run for president? The Secretary of States and Coffee Countys claims that they knew nothing about this alleged unauthorized access will not withstand scrutiny, Marks told The Daily Beast. How a state's counties vote in a presidential election and the size of those counties can provide additional insights into election outcomes at other levels of government including statewide and congressional races. 260 14th St. NW Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion. Shanahan didn't return a call from 11Alive before publication. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Friday that he will Anyone can read what you share. 1. chevron.addClass('fa-chevron-down'); Registered voters get sample ballots by mail before an election. James Barnes is now the new elections supervisor. She said in interviews that she hoped the Georgia businessman who visited later, Scott Hall, and others who accompanied him could help identify vulnerabilities and prove that this election was not done true and correct.. The visitors to Coffee County apparently saw it as an ideal place to gather intelligence on what they viewed as voting irregularities: At one point, video footage shows the then-chair of the Coffee County Republican Party, Cathy Latham, appearing to welcome into the building the members of a forensics company hired by Ms. Powell. They said in part, every other county was able to complete this task within the given time limits.. With the benefit of hindsight, and knowing everything they know now, they would not take on any further work of this kind.. Hampton told The Post last week that no investigators have contacted her about Halls claims. The Douglas Elections Department, also known as the Board of Registrars, manages poll locations, certifies election results, and promotes fair and legal elections. ATLANTA Former President Donald J. Trump took part in a discussion about plans to access voting system software in Michigan and Georgia as part of the effort to challenge his 2020 election loss, according to testimony from former Trump advisers. #contentwrapper { Click on your candidates to read their biography, view past election results, read their campaign themes and responses to our candidate survey, and more. The next morning, the operation was underway. What the results mean for 2024: A Republican Party red wave seems to be a ripple after Republicans fell short in the Senate and narrowly won control in the House. .widget-toggle-tabs li.panel > a:after {font-family: 'Glyphicons Halflings';content: '\e113';float: right;color: grey}.widget-toggle-tabs li.panel > a.collapsed:after {content: '\e080'} Many of the details of the Coffee County visit were included in emails and texts that surfaced in civil litigation brought by voting rights activists against Georgias secretary of state; news of the breach was reported earlier by The Washington Post. Thomas-Clark, the elections board chair, said Hampton was accused of falsifying time sheets. All of them, including Ms. Latham, have been identified as targets of Ms. Williss investigation. } It should also include every candidate running in those elections, except write-ins. Similar breaches coordinated by Trump allies played out in several swing states. States must act. You could not have snuck anybody in here. Text messages from that period indicate that some Trump allies seeking evidence of election fraud had considered other uses for the Coffee County election data and their analyses of it. All rights reserved. Prosecutors don't identify the alleged crime or the elector who may have violated state law. LISTEN: Patricia Murphy on Kemp's relationship with the state's GOP. COFFEE COUNTY, Ga. Georgia's secretary of state's office is investigating whether an activist had inappropriate access to an election server in a county in 2021. Address, Phone Number, and Fax Number for Coffee County Board of Elections, a Board Of Elections, at West Ashley Street, Douglas GA. View map of Coffee County Board of Elections, and get driving directions from your location. The operation continued for hours. What was the voter registration deadline? An attorney for Cathy Latham, the former chair of the Coffee County Republican Party, filed a motion Friday joining Trump's efforts to bury a special purpose grand jury report that recommends more than a dozen people be indicted for their actions.