Georgia Sec. of State's office: Failed alleged hack of voter system

Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Georgia's secretary of state's office said Sunday morning that it had opened an investigation into the Democratic Party of Georgia after a failed alleged attempt to hack the state's voter registration system.

The office of Brian Kemp, who is also the Republican candidate for governor, said federal partners, including the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation, were immediately alerted Saturday night as the investigation began.

Kemp's office didn't immediately provide any evidence to support the allegations.

"While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes," press secretary Candice Broce said. "We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure."

The Georgia Democratic Party responded to the announcement Sunday, saying the "scurrilous claims are 100 percent false" and declaring the investigation "another example of abuse of power" by Kemp.

"This political stunt from Kemp just days before the election is yet another example of why he cannot be trusted and should not be overseeing an election in which he is also a candidate for governor," the state Democratic Party's executive director, Rebecca DeHart, said.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said Sunday morning, she had heard nothing of the probe, saying the investigation was meant to be a distraction with election day nearing.

"Once again Brian Kemp is trying to distract voters with a desperate ploy. He twice this week was told by federal judges that he was wrong when it comes to voter suppression," she said.

On Friday, a federal judge ruled Georgia must allow 3,000 new U.S. citizens to vote in the midterm elections if they show proof of citizenship and a week earlier a federal judge blocked the state of Georgia from throwing out absentee ballots and applications in cases when a voter's signature doesn't match their paper work.

"He is desperate to turn the conversation away from his failures, from his refusal to honor his commitments and from the fact that he's part of a nationwide system of voter suppression that will not work in this election because we're going to outwork him, we're going to out vote him and we're going to win," Abrams added.

Kemp's office said it received information from its lawyers about failed efforts to breach voter registration websites.

An attorney of a group that sued the office about machines' vulnerabilities said he submitted the hacking results.

"Someone was making a good-faith effort to determine if there's a vulnerability, and he's coming after them and saying it's hacking," attorney David Cross said to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "It's another failure of Kemp's office to actually have a secure election system in the state."