On September 28, the Georgia State Elections Board announced that they have asked the FBI to participate in their ongoing criminal investigation into a voting systems breach in Coffee County.
Earlier this month, surveillance video evidence showed that Cathy Latham, the former chairwoman of the Coffee County, Georgia, GOP, had led two operatives into the county’s election offices. That same day, a voting system in the office was breached, prompting this investigation.
“The conduct in Coffee County is similar to conduct in Antrim County, Michigan, and Clark County, Nevada,” said Georgia elections board Chairman William Duffey Jr. The FBI was asked to participate due to these similarities.
The investigation is also looking into communications between election officials in another Georgia county, Spalding County, and SullivanStrickler, the cybersecurity firm that accessed voting systems in Coffee County. SullivanStrickler was hired by Sidney Powell, former attorney for Donald Trump, to steal files from Coffee County voting equipment in January 2021.
The decision to investigate Spalding County raises questions about whether the same group involved in the Coffee County breach were involved in similar attempts in other areas of the state.
Currently, it is unclear why Spalding County wanted to have Sullivan Strickler access their voting systems, or whether or not they actually did breach them.
In a press statement, SullivanStrickler’s team said that it was “directed by attorneys to contact county election officials to obtain access to certain data” in Georgia, and was also “directed by attorneys to distribute that date to certain individuals.”
SullivanStrickler’s attorneys have stated that they did not take images of any equipment in Spalding County.
