Coffee County, Georgia, held elections for local offices in 2022. 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. widget_load_check_jquery(); The note below discusses how we do that, and how you can help. They plan to hire an assistant E]elections supervisor by May 15. ), Questions? Details continue to emerge from other places where outsiders may have sought access to voting machines. She said they did not enter a room that housed the countys touch-screen voting machines, but she said she did not know whether they entered the room housing the election management system server, the central computer used to tally election results. Meanwhile, some prominent election deniers have sought help from officials with access to protected voting systems, and others including Peters in Colorado are running to oversee elections as secretaries of state. if ($(this).next('div.vis_widget_table').is(":hidden")) { The very next day, he hired Riddlehoover to work at his used car dealership, Chaney Motors, Hampton and Latham both told The Daily Beast. Both the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Fulton County District Attorney are investigating the breach. By: Stanley Dunlap - August 1, 2022 10:04 pm. Trump filed his motion to quash the jury's report in March. Three other members of the board at the time did not respond to requests for comment. } Here are the top 10 2024 presidential candidates for the Republicans and Democrats. GPB is committedto bringing you comprehensive news coverage from Georgia, across the country and around the world. Click [show] on the table below for examples: Following the 2020 presidential election, 45.4% of Georgians lived in one of the state's 122 Solid Republican counties, which voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election from 2012 to 2020, and 35.4% lived in one of 27 Solid Democratic counties. Hampton, who was hired by the board, said she was accompanied during Halls visit by the fifth member, Eric Chaney. 2/ 23 Apr 2023 14:12:30 Below, four categories are used to describe each county's voting pattern over the 2012, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections: Solid, Trending, Battleground, and New. Trump allies were invited to inspect the county's voting system. Surveillance footage shows Latham escorting operatives working with former Trump attorney Sidney Powell through the front door of the county's election office. Byrne said Hall told him that he and others had made a trip to Coffee County to try to get access to election equipment. Chaney did not respond to messages seeking comment about his role in creating the video. Logan said in a podcast interview last year that after the 2020 election, he spent time in Georgia trying to get access to Dominion machines to investigate the election results. Remember? $("div.vis_widget_title").each(function(index) { Federal courts | } 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. VoterInfobyState_Timeout_jquery = setTimeout(widget_load_check_jquery, 500); Latham, reached at her home, sat down and spoke to The Daily Beast on her front porch for nearly an hour but professed ignorance about any details of the teams visit. } Click here to read about the Eight Quality Benchmarks, Ballot access for major/minor party candidates, Ballot access for major and minor party candidates, List of absentee/mail-in ballot request websites by state, List of official voter registration websites by state, https://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Coffee_County_Sample_Ballot_(Georgia)&oldid=8383354, Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls, Conflicts in school board elections, 2021-2022, Special Congressional elections (2023-2024), 2022 Congressional Competitiveness Report, State Executive Competitiveness Report, 2022, State Legislative Competitiveness Report, 2022, Partisanship in 2022 United States local elections. You have an elephant in a porcelain store. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion. Incumbents are bolded and underlined . Ballotpedia features 408,486 encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. }); Why has this Georgia man been behind bars for 10 years awaiting trial? However, in a court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for the office informed U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg that the only paperwork reflecting the investigation and its seizure of the potentially exposed machine is a cryptic technical document that shows how a new machine was brought online there on June 8, 2021. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion. I told her, You sit over there. Privacy Policy Copyright 2021 WALB. As recently reported in the New York Times, for example, the Trump allies CountyOffice.org does not provide consumer reports and is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The Coffee County data was also used earlier this year in a presentation to conservative activists that included unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, The Los Angeles Times has reported. } padding-top: 0; SullivanStrickler, in a statement released by a law firm representing the company, said it has never been part of a pro-Trump team or any team whose goal is to undermine our democracy, adding that it was a politically agnostic firm that was hired to preserve and forensically copy the Dominion voting machines used in the 2020 election. The statement said it was categorically false that SullivanStrickler was part of an effort that illegally breached servers or other voting equipment, adding that it was retained and directed by licensed, practicing attorneys., The firm elected to cease any further new work on this matter after the Jan. 7 time period, the statement said. 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. #content { ELECTION DAY March 21, 2023 County SPLOST March 21, 2023 Election Results can be viewed here. The vigilante teams visit to Coffee County flies in the face of that, hence the growing pressure for Raffensperger to explain what his office has found in its investigation. 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. Maggio and his firm, SullivanStrickler, played a role in perpetuating the myth of a Trump victory in 2020 as hired expert witnesses supporting a lawsuit against Antrim County, Michigananother locality that was mired in bogus allegations of vote tamperingand the text messages show that the team headed to rural Georgia also included Jeffrey Lenberg, a man heralded by rightwing media as a systems vulnerability expert who also reviewed the voting machines in Antrim County. Pfft. The teams work wrapped up later that afternoon. font-size: 12px; }. In a December hearing, long before the recorded phone call surfaced, investigators for the secretary of states office told the State Elections Board that they had found security problems in Hamptons office. These excuses cannot pass muster in the eyes of voters.. Marks, stunned by what she began to hear, started recording the call. Were all voters required to present ID at the polls? Divided government: Republicans narrowly won back control of the House, while Democrats will keep control of the Senate, creating a split Congress. Popularity:#21 of 159 Boards Of Elections in Georgia#168 in Boards Of Elections. LISTEN: Ed Lindsey speaks on the length of the investigation. } Overall, Georgia was New Democratic, having voted for Mitt Romney (R) in 2012, Donald Trump (R) in 2016, and Joe Biden (D) in 2020. President Donald J. Trump departed a campaign rally in support of Georgias Republican senators in 2020. Election information in Georgia: Nov. 8, 2022, election. County Office is not affiliated with any government agency. Start the day with the top stories from the US, plus the days must-reads from across the Guardian. Allies of Mr. Trump ultimately succeeded in copying the elections software in those two states, and the breach of voting data in Georgia is being examined by prosecutors as part of a broader criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump and his allies interfered in the presidential election there. Her video fueled the quickly coalescing conspiracy theories and came at the perfect timejust as Trump advocate lawyer Sidney Powell and others launched so-called Kraken conspiracy lawsuits with bogus allegations of voting fraud. You may not use this site for the purposes of furnishing consumer reports about search subjects or for any use prohibited by the FCRA. Hampton would later tell The Daily Beast that Chaney and Latham were there, and she recalled telling her junior assistant, Jil Riddlehoover, to stay quiet. color: white; She is excited to tell stories in Georgia's diverse political landscape. Huge things are starting to come together! Team left Atlanta at 8 5 members led by Paul Maggio Scott is flying in, Latham texted on Jan. 7 at 9:46 a.m. An hour later, a small single-propeller plane flying in from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport appeared on the horizon just north of the small city, according to flight records obtained by The Daily Beast. He said on the call that he had not received a report from the team about its findings. }); Legal experts say the Fulton County investigation could be particularly perilous for Mr. Trumps allies, and perhaps for Mr. Trump himself, given the phone call that Mr. Trump made as president to Georgias secretary of state on Jan. 2, 2021, asking him to find enough votes to help him overturn his election loss in the state. A spokeswoman for Carr told The Post this week that the review remains active and ongoing.. } That included Misty Hampton, then the Coffee County elections supervisor, who made a viral video claiming to show how Dominion Voting System machines could flip votes. Do you know where the elections board is? Text messages show that a group of five people traveled south from Atlanta to the government elections offices in Douglas. Anyone can read what you share. Barnes, who is no longer employed by Coffee County, could not be reached. I dont know how they did that, she said. Trump had carried the conservative county by 40 points, but elections supervisor Misty Hampton said she remained suspicious of Joe Bidens win in Georgia. A short time later, Latham checked in on Hampton. chevron.removeClass('fa-chevron-down'); View the list of candidates that will be on your ballot. Third party advertisements support hosting, listing verification, updates, and site maintenance. Ballot counting Mail ballot processing starts weeks before Election Day. She said that she had met Hall once in passing before he called her and that she started recording the call after he said he had obtained confidential legal files related to her litigation. function widget_load_check_jquery() { Shanahan didn't return a call from 11Alive before publication. function widget_load_check_dom(){ Testimony to the Jan. 6 committee from one aide who attended the meeting, Derek Lyons, a former White House staff secretary and counselor, was highlighted on Friday in a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation from Free Speech for People, a liberal nonprofit legal advocacy group. Tribal elections are not included. I dont know anything about it, she told The Post. 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.. Former President Trump at a rally in Waco, Texas, in March. On June 8, 2021, about a month after Barnes sent the email regarding Logans business card, state officials replaced the server in Coffee County with a new server, according to computer records generated when the new server was installed. Hampton told The Post she was unaware of guidance the Georgia secretary of states office had sent to county election administrators saying that voting equipment and software must not be released to the public absent a court order. Chaney, the elections board member, received word that the county GOP chair was on the phone with an Atlanta businessman who wanted access to the voting system computers there. Honestly don't know who would know all I know is what the paper said., Latham did, however, say she relayed doubts about Coffee Countys election system to Georgia Republican Party leadership on a Zoom call in the days after the November 2020 election, when the local board of elections refused to certify election results because it could not replicate the original results during a recount. margin: 10px auto; Submit. You know the same people that went up to Michigan, OK, and did all that forensic stuff on the computers they sent their team down to Coffee County, Georgia. Hampton said she could not remember when the visit occurred or what Hall and the others did when they were there. They flagged the practice of leaving doors unlocked in the area that housed election equipment as a risk, according to a transcript of the hearing. 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. 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. In Antrim County, Mich., which was at the forefront of efforts to overturn the election, Sheryl Guy, the clerk, said on Thursday that officials had to rent voting equipment to replace equipment that is being held as evidence in civil litigation. color: #0B406A; Coffee County Administrator Wesley Vickers declined to comment. Was absentee/mail-in voting available to all voters? chevron.addClass('fa-chevron-down'); Ms. Williss office cited the Coffee County data breach in its filing on Thursday seeking Ms. Powells testimony, which was the first time the matter had surfaced in connection with her investigation. if ($('#vis_xs_indicator').is(':hidden')){ A local NBC television affiliate in western Michigan reported last week that police had raided a township office in a different county as part of that investigation. Catch up quick: The secretary of state investigated Coffee County over 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. How in the world did you get permission to do that? Marks asked him. (Notably, all three branches of the federal government have described the January 6 attack on the US Capitol as an insurrection.). This sample ballot tool includes: All candidates in every upcoming election occurring within the 100 most-populated cities in the U.S., plus all federal and statewide elections, including ballot measures, nationwide. Mr. Trump won nearly 70 percent of Coffee County, which is home to just As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. What if, despite all of this, Biden still wins the election but Trump gets more than 20% of Republican senators and House members to object to slates of electors pledged to Biden, and pushes the election into the House where Trump has a majority of votes? A special grand jury has been impaneled with the sole purpose of investigating election meddling in the state and has already heard testimony from more than 30 witnesses, including Mr. Trumps former personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani. } Its in that atmosphere that Coffee County became another front on the Neither Chaney nor Riddlehoover returned calls since The Daily Beast reached out to them last week. He has previously worked on All Things ConsideredandOn Second Thoughtwith Georgia Public Broadcasting andAfrican Perspectiveswith WUGA. State legislature | Barnes said they will start advertising that position next week. A spokesman for Ms. Williss office declined to comment Friday on Mr. Lyonss testimony. A Trump supporter protested election results at the Georgia State Capitol in 2020. You can contact your state or local election administrator for an official sample ballot. if (window.jQuery) { The investigators also flagged what they called the very misleading video that Hampton made along with Chaney, according to investigators about Dominion machines. It was part of an effort by Trump allies in a number of swing states to access and copy sensitive election software, with the help of friendly election administrators. RELATED:Trump moves to block Georgia election investigation from proceeding, remove Fulton County DA from possible cases. WebTo use the GA SOS VR platform, you will need to upgrade or switch to another web browser. text-align: center; Were getting to the point where this is happening at an alarming rate, Lawrence Norden, senior director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center, said in an interview on Thursday. He declined to be interviewed. The messages from a local GOP county chairand fake elector for Donald Trumpshow his plan to examine an elections computer. It remains unclear to what extent Ms. Williss office will focus on the Coffee County matter in her inquiry, or what, if any, charges could flow from it. The reason for the disqualification clause is that someone who has engaged in an insurrection against the United States cannot be trusted to use constitutional methods to regain office. The former supervisor resigned in lieu of termination.. SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Coffee Bluff Road is closed to all traffic south of Vernon River Drive due to downed power lines across the road, according to Savannah police. Former Elections Supervisor, Misty Martin, and former Elections Assistant, Jil Ridlehoover resigned in February. Scott has landed and the rest of team is almost to Douglas, Latham wrote. Donald Trump eats pizza after speaking in Fort Myers, Florida, on Friday. display: none; While others did technical work, Hampton went and bought pizza for the crew across the street, she told The Daily Beast. Sign up to receive GPB Event announcements via Email. Click on your candidates to read their biography, view past election results, read their campaign themes and responses to our candidate survey, and more. } Thank you for using Ballotpedia's sample ballot tool. This week, court filings revealed that the Coffee County data breach is now part of the sprawling investigation into election interference being conducted by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., which encompasses most of Atlanta. And they said: We give you permission. } WebSee your ballot, research candidates and referendums, and vote informed Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, told The Post that the recording captures part of a March 2021 telephone conversation she had with Hall. This means that, for offices within our coverage scope, a person's sample ballot results should include every election that will appear on their actual ballot. display: none; 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 costs of election security breaches have been onerous. Elections Board after forced resignations, Teens arrested after 11 injured in South Carolina park shooting, Former South Georgia State College president passes away. The situation has election cybersecurity experts concerned about the actual danger to election systems posed by these vigilante expeditions, which are mainly driven by disproven conspiracy theories. Webstatesuniteddemocracy.org. The Florida-based firm by then had been selected to conduct a Republican-commissioned ballot review in Maricopa County, Ariz. I think it might be prudent to see if there has been any contact between the person on the card and anyone in your office and/or if they have had access to any of your equipment, Chris Harvey, who was then the state director of elections, replied to Barnes several days later in an email obtained through a public records request. } Election experts noted that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, recommended that the safest course of action was to decommission voting equipment that has been compromised. We test the tool on an ongoing basis for accuracy. Suspected or attempted breaches have spurred law enforcement investigations in Colorado, Michigan and Ohio. Secretaries of state who in most cases are in charge of deciding who gets on the ballot must refuse to place Donald Trumps name on the 2024 ballot, based on the clear meaning of section three of the 14th amendment to the US constitution. One member of the group was Paul Maggio, an executive at a firm based in Atlanta called SullivanStrickler, which helps organizations analyze and manage their data. Mr. Trump won nearly 70 percent of Coffee County, which is home to just 43,000 people. In the weeks after the election, Coffee County quickly emerged as a The Daily Beast paid a visit to another elections board member, Carl Travis Peavy Jr., who would have been briefed on the teams visit. The case alleges that Georgias voting system is insecureand could present a threat to future elections. The petition seeking to compel Ms. Powells testimony notes that Ms. Powell coordinated with SullivanStrickler to obtain elections data from Coffee County, adding: There is further evidence in the public record that indicates that the witness was involved in similar efforts in Michigan and Nevada during the same time period., As a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after the election, Ms. Powell made a number of specious claims about election fraud, including an assertion that Democrats had developed a computer system to alter votes electronically., Ms. Powell is among those who have been sued for defamation by Dominion Voting Systems, the company that provides the voting machines for Coffee County and the rest of Georgia. WebCOFFEE COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS & REGISTRATION. Emails show that Harvey contacted the chief of the secretary of states investigations division, who directed one of her investigators, Pamela Jones, to ask Coffee County officials whether Cyber Ninjas had accessed county voting equipment. 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. Cathy Latham, who was chair of the local Republican Party at the time, was also one of 16 pro-Trump fake electors who convened in the Georgia State Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, despite Mr. Trumps loss in the state. if (typeof VoterInfobyState_Toggle === 'undefined') { Jones did not respond to a request for comment. Georgia Public Radio GPTV, Political Rewind: DA Fani Willis says charges due this summer; Biden announces reelection bid, Political Rewind: With less than 24 hours until the runoff, Warnock and Walker make final pitches, Political Rewind: Georgia's six-week ban on abortions is now law, effective immediately, The FBI doesnt appear to be investigating. As part of that suit, lawyers for Ms. Powell have argued that no reasonable person would conclude that some of her wilder statements were truly statements of fact., Fulton County prosecutors are seeking to have Ms. Powell testify before the special grand jury next month. Latham, a retired school teacher, was one of 16 Republicans who cast Electoral College ballots falsely claiming Trump won the 2020 presidential election. David Cross, an attorney representing a group of voting rights activists in that lawsuit, said this matter isnt getting the level of scrutiny it deserves. } Surveillance video shows Latham opening the door for people entering This comes two months after the board was unable to certify their recount results in the 2020 Presidential Election. She is seeking to remove herself from the case because one of the people potentially implicated in the scheme is her likely Republican election opponent, Matthew DePerno. Incumbent Katherine Paulk ran in the Republican primary for Coffee County Solicitor General on May 24, 2022. If so, was a photo or non-photo ID required? chevron.addClass('fa-chevron-up'); What was the voter registration deadline? They copied election software used across Georgia and uploaded it on the internet an open invitation to election manipulation by Trump allies in 2024. If someone got access to it, then their whole defense is eviscerated.. GPB is in its spring fund drive. They said in part, every other county was able to complete this task within the given time limits.. Surveillance video shows Latham opening the door for people entering the Coffee County election office on Jan. 7, 2021, one day after the massive riot at the U.S. Capitol. It should also include every candidate running in those elections, except write-ins. Select an Option. If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why 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. In a portion of a recorded phone call, a man identified in court papers as Hall claimed to have arranged for a plane to take people to Coffee County to copy data on voting equipment. 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. } A law firm hired by SullivanStrickler, the consulting firm hired by Ms. Powell to help gain access to the countys voting machines, would later release a statement saying that, With the benefit of hindsight, and knowing everything they know now, they would not take on any further work of this kind., Testimony Suggests Trump Was at Meeting About Accessing Voting Software, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/us/trump-voting-software-2020-election.html. The state board referred the findings to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) for potential civil penalties. Does anyone doubt the possibility no, the probability of any or all of this happening? 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. Navigate to Georgia 2022 local elections overviews: Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Three ballot counts and multiple investigations upheld the results in Georgia that Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump, a Republican, by about 12,000 votes. How to vote | If anything, Trump is less constrained than he was in 2020. They said state officials have not found evidence of a security breach. In several instances since 2020, machines have been taken out of service after their chain of custody was interrupted. WebCoffee County Sample Ballot (Georgia) - Ballotpedia Who is running for election in Go for it. So, they went in there and imaged every hard drive of every piece of equipment. SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Coffee Bluff Road is closed to all traffic south of Vernon River Drive due to downed power lines across the road, according to Savannah police. }); One, in Mesa County, Colorado, has already led to an indictment. Why would you want to hide anything?. A former elections supervisor in rural Coffee County, Ga., has told The Washington Post that she opened her offices to a businessman active in the election-denier movement to help investigate results she did not trust in the weeks after President Donald Trumps 2020 defeat. New leader heads Coffee Co. 224 WEST ASHLEY STREET DOUGLAS, GA 31533 912-384-7018 FAX # 912-384-1343 Wendell Stone, Elections Board Chairman Rachel Roberts, Elections Supervisor 2023 But that investigation may expose a far more sinister plot than previously suspected. How could somebody sneak here? In many cases, the groundwork has been laid. Adrienne Jones, @adriennemjns, professor of political science and director of pre-law, Morehouse College, Edward Lindsey,@edlindsey14, former state representative (R), State Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver,@mmo_mary, (D) Decatur, Patricia Murphy, @MurphyAJC, political reporter and columnist, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I am going to call you in a few, Hampton wrote to her boss in a text message conversation we obtained. Mr. Giuliani is one of at least 18 people who have been notified by prosecutors that they could face indictment in the case. The operatives then spent hours inside the office copying election data. Thomas-Clark, the elections board chair, said Hampton was accused of falsifying time sheets. When Hampton reached out to Chaney that evening, he directed her to take the communications to an encrypted app with disappearing messages. LISTEN: Patricia Murphy on Kemp's relationship with the state's GOP. get driving directions from your location, US Election Assistance Commission Website. Atlanta, GA 30318 Hampton told The Post she believed that Logan had stopped by her office at some point. The next day, Chaney asked her to switch to Signal, the encrypted messaging app, according to the messages. The report supports past warnings about the software made by University of Michigan cybersecurity researcher J. Alex Halderman, who first spotted those weaknesses in a report that remains sealed by the federal judge.