Lawsuit Filed to Void Georgia Special Election

What’s the story? The New York Times reports a government watchdog group, in concert with six Georgia residents, has filed suit to have the results of the June 6 Georgia special election between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff voided, citing concerns with voting machine security and a lack of paper ballots to back up the vote results.

Handel, who won with 52 percent of the vote, has already been sworn in, though Monday was the last day to file a contest of the vote results.

Why does it matter? The suit, filed by the Coalition for Good Governance, cites the work of two independent researchers who discovered last August that, "a misconfigured server had left Georgia's 6.7 million voter records and other sensitive files exposed to hackers."

The suit comes amid widespread coverage of Russian-backed attempts to hack voter systems in multiple states leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

The defendants named in the suit include Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, members of the State Election Board, local election officials in Fulton, Cobb and DeKalb counties and the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University.

Secretary of State Kemp stated in an op-ed Sunday that states are doing enough to keep voting systems secure and any media coverage to the contrary is "fake news":

"Informed, non-partisan experts agree that manipulating a presidential election makes a good TV storyline but lacks real-world standing. State voting systems are diverse, highly scrutinized and not connected to the Internet. Web-based attacks on voter registration do not affect the vote count. The thing that matters most — your vote — is secure.”

What can you do? Ask yourself these questions and then let your reps know what you think: Should the results of the Georgia election be put on hold until any investigations involved in this suit be concluded? Should all states be required to have paper ballot back-up for all votes? Do you have concerns about voting security in your state? Or, do you think the whole issue is a false narrative?

Use the Take Action button to tell your reps what you think!

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— Asha Sanaker

(Photo Credit: WSB Radio / Creative Commons)