Voting system files used in the 2020 election were shared with attorneys for former President Donald Trump as they investigated potential vote fraud in Georgia. Trump attorneys hired a Georgia computer forensics firm to help them understand the software used in elections to see if it is susceptible to fraud. Now, the Washington Post is reporting that those files may have been seen by a number of people who should never have had access to them.
The firm legally obtained information on voting machines and placed the files on a server for the attorneys to examine. Those files have been downloaded dozens of times, the Post reported. And according to the paper, those downloads were completed by Trump supporters, election 2020 deniers, conspiracy theorists and right-wing commentators.
An independent probe testing the integrity of the election system has raised further questions. Access to voting system software is tightly regulated, and there are concerns over information getting into the hands of those not authorized to have it.
The security concerns are nothing new. Since 2020, there have been a series of data leaks involving elections offices. According to the Post, the assumption of sensitive election material getting into the hands of hackers casts fresh doubt on the election systems’ integrity just two months away from midterms.
