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.. What was the absentee/mail-in ballot return deadline? We test the tool on an ongoing basis for accuracy. We scanned every freaking ballot and the elections director and her assistant lost their job, and have yet learned zero about all of that effort we havent had a report from anybody.. 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. In the weeks after the election, Coffee County quickly emerged as a Three other members of the board at the time did not respond to requests for comment. Whatever Halls team found, it didnt amount to much. 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. 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. Byrne said Hall told him he did not know whether they succeeded in obtaining sensitive data, such as a copy of the hard drive of the server. Can any of us who saw (or have learned through the painstaking work of the January 6 committee) what Trump tried to do to overturn the results of the 2020 election have any doubt he will once again try to do whatever necessary to regain power, even if illegal and unconstitutional? A short time later, Latham checked in on Hampton. But Trump is running for re-election, despite the explicit language of section three of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which prohibits anyone who has held public office and who has engaged in insurrection against the United States from ever again serving in public office. You can unsubscribe at any time and we will never share your information. Send the note to: editor@ballotpedia.org. Elections Board after forced resignations, Teens arrested after 11 injured in South Carolina park shooting, Former South Georgia State College president passes away. Information found on CountyOffice.org is strictly for informational purposes and does not construe legal, financial or medical advice. 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? 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. The discrepancy was not nearly enough to change the result of the Last week, Hampton told The Daily Beast that she still has not received a phone call from investigatorscasting more doubt on the veracity of the states effort to actually get to the bottom of what happened. The group urged the Justice Department and the F.B.I. chevron.removeClass('fa-chevron-down'); 2/ 22 Apr 2023 20:42:43 Suggest Listing Maggio, who allegedly led the team, declined to discuss his trip to Coffee County. Most immediately, we were granted access - by written invitation! I dont see why anything that is dealing with elections is not open to the public, Hampton said. Do you know where the elections board is? } 2023 County Office. 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. 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. 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. They copied election software used across Georgia and uploaded it on the internet an open invitation to election manipulation by Trump allies in 2024. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion. DOWNLOAD THE APP She has reported on everything from Hurricane Irma to the Milwaukee Bucks winning the NBA championship. }); font-size: 12px; While others did technical work, Hampton went and bought pizza for the crew across the street, she told The Daily Beast. They plan to hire an assistant E]elections supervisor by May 15. His spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about his interactions with Hampton. 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. Georgia runoff election: Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) won re-election in the Georgia Senate runoff, defeating Republican challenger Herschel Walker and giving Democrats a 51st seat in the Senate for the 118th Congress. As recently reported in the New York Times, for example, the Trump allies who traveled to Coffee county, Georgia, on 7 January 2021 gained access to sensitive election data. In their court filing this week, they said that she possessed unique knowledge about postelection meetings held at the South Carolina plantation of L. Lin Wood, a pro-Trump lawyer and conspiracy theorist. View the list of candidates that will be on your ballot. State legislature | Go for it.. 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. chevron.addClass('fa-chevron-down'); The Daily Beast has verified that the conversations were real and remain stored on an iPhone. 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. We scanned every freaking ballot, he said in a recorded phone conversation in March 2021. } else { Weeks later, Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area Trump supporter and bail bondsman who traveled to Coffee County on a chartered plane, described what he and the group did there. States must act. Election information in Georgia: Nov. 8, 2022, election. In response to a subpoena filed by the plaintiffs, Coffee County attorneys turned over video this week that revealed footage of the elections office on January 7, 2021, when the county GOP Chairwoman Latham, election board member Eric Chaney and election director Misty Hampton were joined by Hall, Paul Maggio, chief operating officer As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. $(window).on('resize',resizeChevron); What if he gets them to prevent people likely to vote for Joe Biden from voting at all? County Office is not affiliated with any government agency. Trump allies were invited to inspect the county's voting system. What if he gets them to appoint electors who will vote for him regardless of the outcome of the popular vote? 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. (modern). WebThe Coffee County Board of Elections, located in Douglas, GA, is a government office Donald Trump lost re-election but refused to concede and instead claimed without basis that the election was stolen from him, then pushed state officials to change their tallies, hatched a plot to name fake electors, tried to persuade the vice-president to refuse to certify electoral college votes, sought access to voting-machine data and software, got his allies in Congress to agree to question the electoral votes and thereby shift the decision to the House of Representatives, and summoned his supporters to Washington on the day electoral votes were to be counted and urged them to march on the US Capitol, where they rioted. - to the Coffee County systens (sic). Click the links below to learn more: Click here to use Ballotpedia's sample ballot to find every election that Ballotpedia has on file for your address. The next morning, the operation was underway. padding-top: 0; And she questioned why access should be so restricted. You may not use this site for the purposes of furnishing consumer reports about search subjects or for any use prohibited by the FCRA. The state board referred the findings to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) for potential civil penalties. I told her, You sit over there. DOUGLAS, Ga. (WALB) - Two Coffee County employees resigned from the countys elections office. chevron.removeClass('fa-chevron-down'); 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. Three vote counts found that Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia in the 2020 presidential election, and investigations have repeatedly discredited claims of fraud. James Barnes is now the new elections supervisor. When Hampton reached out to Chaney that evening, he directed her to take the communications to an encrypted app with disappearing messages. Federal courts | The Board of Elections holds general elections, caucuses, primaries, and special elections, including elections for Douglas, Coffee County, Georgia state, and federal offices. In the days after Bidens victory, officials in Coffee County about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta voiced suspicions of fraud, elections board meeting minutes show. Mr. Trump won nearly 70 percent of Coffee County, which is home to just 43,000 people. Copyright 2021 WALB. Third party advertisements support hosting, listing verification, updates, and site maintenance. 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. padding-top: 80px; DOUGLAS, GEORGIAThe Georgia Secretary of State claims it is investigating how a local election supervisor gave a cadre of 2020 election truthers improper access to an election computer system, in what initially seemed like the latest example of rogue actors misusing their government positions to cast doubt on President Joe Bidens victory over Donald Trump. chevron.addClass('fa-chevron-up'); } In its letter, Free Speech for People argued that the testimony and other details that have been made public prove that Mr. Trump was, at a minimum, aware of an unlawful, multistate plot to access and copy voting system software. to conduct a vigorous and swift investigation.. The Douglas Elections Department, also known as the Board of Registrars, manages poll locations, certifies election results, and promotes fair and legal elections. 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. At 3:48 p.m., Hampton updated the GOP chair. .mobile-app-cta { } else { The next day, Chaney asked her to switch to Signal, the encrypted messaging app, according to the messages. Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock chief executive who has played a central role in the election-denier movement and has written about his own teams efforts to find irregularities in Georgia and elsewhere, described Hall as a node in the network of people investigating the election during that time. We basically had the entire elections committee there. Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Byrne said Hall told him that he and others had made a trip to Coffee County to try to get access to election equipment. But what if Trump gets secretaries of state and governors who are loyal to him to alter the election machinery to ensure he wins? The plaintiffs argue that the states election system is so insecure that it violates the rights of voters. The case alleges that Georgias voting system is insecureand could present a threat to future elections. But the previously unreported text messages shed new light on who arranged the possibly illegal access to the computer and who was on the team that traveled south to do it. Huge things are starting to come together! if (chevron.hasClass('fa-chevron-down')) { And lawmakers in what remains of the Republican party have made it clear that they will bend or disregard any rule that gets in their way. 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. if (window.jQuery) { 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. 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. if ($('#vis_xs_indicator').is(':hidden') || typeof VoterInfobyState_Resized!='undefined') { chevron.addClass('fa-chevron-down'); The Secretary of States office is already fighting off a lawsuit over the security of the states voting machines and may face tough questions before a federal judge next week, given that the Coffee County incident demonstrates the states inability to keep its machines off limits. A spokesman for Ms. Williss office declined to comment Friday on Mr. Lyonss testimony. .sample-ballot-mobile-promo, .sample-ballot-mobile-promo a, .sample-ballot-mobile-promo a:hover { } 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. Hall, who owns a bail bond business, did not respond to requests for comment. WebCOFFEE COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS & REGISTRATION. Submit. 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. width: 300px; 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. (Click here to read about the Eight Quality Benchmarks for a Sample Ballot Lookup Tool. 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. Remember? Hampton told The Post she did not change any password. border-radius: 6px; The board of elections forced Hampton and her assistant to resign on Feb. 25, 2021. 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. He currently works as a producer with GPB'sPolitical Rewindteam. Attorneys for Raffensperger told the judge last month that the secretary of states office took possession of the old server because a former elections official, whom they did not name, changed a password, making it impossible for others to get into the machine. They said in part, every other county was able to complete this task within the given time limits.. Hampton said she could not remember when the visit occurred or what Hall and the others did when they were there. Now that Halls mission was unraveling in the public eye, he reached out to an election rights activist to recount his experience in Douglas. The teams work wrapped up later that afternoon. Chase McGee is a Gwinnett County native and graduate of the University of Georgia. According to text messages obtained by The Daily Beast, the covert access granted to Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall and his technical team was actually part of a coordinated effort to find election irregularities. Divided government: Republicans narrowly won back control of the House, while Democrats will keep control of the Senate, creating a split Congress. 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. Three ballot counts and multiple investigations upheld the results in Georgia that Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump, a Republican, by about 12,000 votes. (Notably, all three branches of the federal government have described the January 6 attack on the US Capitol as an insurrection.). 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. margin: 10px auto; In the year and a half since the 2020 election, there has been a steady drumbeat of revelations about alleged security breaches in local elections offices and a growing concern among experts that officials who are sympathetic to claims of vote-rigging might be persuaded to undermine election security in the name of protecting it. text-align: center; ), Questions? This month, Michigans attorney general, Dana Nessel, a Democrat, sought the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate data breaches there. We strive for our sample ballot tool to be 100% accurate. 2/ 01 May 2023 05:36:38 The very next day, he hired Riddlehoover to work at his used car dealership, Chaney Motors, Hampton and Latham both told The Daily Beast. Voting systems are considered by the federal government to be critical infrastructure, vital to national security, and access to their software and other components is tightly regulated. She gave The Post what she said were text messages with Chaney in which she mentioned Hall. Catch up quick: The secretary of state investigated Coffee County over 2/ 22 Apr 2023 20:42:43 2/ 23 Apr 2023 14:12:30 Brian Kemp will skip the Georgia GOP convention in Columbus in June. RELATED:Trump moves to block Georgia election investigation from proceeding, remove Fulton County DA from possible cases. } else { Why would you want to hide anything?. They said state officials have not found evidence of a security breach. Our panelists offer their insights on how we got here and what we can expect this week. VoterInfobyState_Timeout_dom = setTimeout(widget_load_check_dom, 500); chevron.addClass('fa-chevron-down'); She said she could not recall the circumstances of his visit. Get live updates here and runoff results by county. Surveillance video shows Latham opening the door for people entering 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. Board Chair, Ernestine Thomas-Clark, said the Board of Elections and Registrations Office resumed operations, the first of this month. RELATED:'Ethical mess' | Georgia's 'fake' Trump electors turn on each other, Fulton DA says. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. Former Elections Supervisor, Misty Martin, and former Elections Assistant, Jil Ridlehoover resigned in February. Barnes, who is no longer employed by Coffee County, could not be reached. 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. 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. One such case has already led to criminal charges. There is no estimate on reopen time. All rights reserved. chevron.addClass('fa-chevron-up'); 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. .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'} 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. Participants in that effort including employees of the Atlanta-based data security firm Sullivan Strickler and former pro surfer Conan Hayes, who was then working with Byrne either declined to comment or did not respond to a request for comment. } 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. } A two-minute and thirty-six-second snippet of that call was presented to a federal judge in a case led by Marks voting rights group. I dont know anything about it, she told The Post. 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 spokeswoman for Carr told The Post this week that the review remains active and ongoing.. I appreciate you calling, but Im not going to talk about that, he told The Daily Beast by phone on Thursday evening. Find 5 external resources related to Coffee County Board of Elections. Ballot measures, Who represents me? = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. Cities | In mid-January 2021, two men hired by former President Donald Trump's display: none; Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion. Barnes said they will start advertising that position next week. Were all voters required to present ID at the polls? 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. Questions about Hamptons interactions with Hall surfaced only in recent months, in a long-running federal lawsuit filed by the Coalition for Good Governance and others against the Georgia secretary of states office. Please consider pledging your support. Please consider making a gift today to support this vital public service. color: white; And they said: We give you permission. While those bogus lawsuits clogged up the courts, ex-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and QAnon-friendly attorney Lin Wood funded independent efforts to send teams of hackers and cybersleuths to access voting computer systems across the country. All rights reserved. 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. Those lawyers hedged that the search for documents was conducted during a trial and during ongoing elections. The state agency is expected to face questions about this during a court hearing next week. 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.. Your support makes this possible. Similar attempts in Colorado, Michigan, and Ohio have been investigated. Strangely, the investigation did not create a single document or email. North Carolina attorney Kieran J. Shanahan filed the motion on Latham's behalf. This comes two months after the board was unable to certify their recount results in the 2020 Presidential Election. In the following weeksas Trump was impeached for his role in stoking the Capitol riots and the illegal accessing of voting machines came into focusword got out about their secret mission in Douglas. WebCoffee County, Georgia, held elections for local offices in 2022. In 2016, I declared I am your voice, Trump said last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a line he repeated at his first 2024 campaign rally, in Waco, Texas, a few weeks later. The day after Donald J. Trumps supporters stormed the Capitol, a small group working on his behalf traveled to rural Coffee County, Ga., about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta. Navigate to Georgia 2022 local elections overviews: Hampton said she resigned from her elections job under pressure in February 2021. 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. Everything we have seen so far shows that the people who have been doing this have no fucking skills. You could not have snuck anybody in here. Donald Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign shortly after the midterms. Trump officials most likely targeted the countys voting system because the county was run by friendly officials who were eager to cooperate. What were the early voting start and end dates? 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. ELECTION DAY March 21, 2023 County SPLOST March 21, 2023 Election Results can be viewed here.