By Elizabeth Weise
USA TODAY
(Aug. 24, 2017)
SAN FRANCISCO — First elections, then probes into hacking. Now, the lawsuits over election hacking.
A group of Democrat and Republican voters in Georgia is suing the state to overturn its fiercely fought June special election, saying evidence the state’s voter database was exposed to potential hackers for at least eight months invalidates the results. The lawsuit, which went to pre-trial conferences this week, could be a sign of disputes to come as revelations mount about the vulnerability of the U.S. election system and Russian attempts to infiltrate it.
“As public attention finally starts to focus on the cybersecurity of election systems, we will see more suits like this one, and eventually, a woke judge will invalidate an election,” said Bruce McConnell, vice president of the EastWest Institute and former Department of Homeland Security deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity during the Obama administration.
Georgia’s June special election to fill a Congressional seat vacated by Tom Price, who left to become President Trump’s health and human services secretary, was the most expensive House race ever. Democrats nationwide pumped $23 million to back candidate Jon Ossoff while President Trump stumped for Republican Karen Handel, pointing to her win as proof of his campaign’s popularity.
Plaintiffs argue the disclosure in August 2016 by Logan Lamb, a Georgia-based computer security expert, that much of Georgia’s voting system was inadvertently left out in the open on the Internet without password protection from August 2016 to March 2017 should make the results moot.
What’s more, Georgia’s use of what the plaintiffs say are insecure touch-screen voting computers, which they claim don’t comply with Georgia state requirements for security testing, means the election results couldn’t legally be certified, they say.
