NYC rep.'s campaign office burglarized

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y., Sept. 24 (UPI) -- The campaign headquarters for a New York City congressman was burglarized overnight and police say some computers may have been tampered with.

Rep. Michael Grimm, a Republican, said the burglars broke through two windows, possibly to cover up having deleted several computer hard drives with election-related data on them. Grimm told the Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance his campaign had backed up the data regarding polling, voter registration and identification just hours prior to the break-in and no actual data was lost.

"Whoever did this, the people responsible are very ignorant, and they don't understand that this is not just an attack against me or my campaign. This is an attack against a federal campaign office, which is an attack on our democracy as a whole. It's an attack against what we stand for, for free elections," Grimm, a first-term incumbent, said.

Grimm's Democratic challenger, Mark Murphy, released a statement also condemning the break-in.

"There is never any place for violence or vandalism in an electoral campaign or political debate," the statement read. "We hope that the police quickly apprehend whomever was responsible for this criminal act and prosecute all parties involved to the fullest extent of the law."