Lawyers representing election integrity advocates filed a lawsuit on Thursday in which they accuse Georgia election officials of intentionally disposing of evidence that would have otherwise helped establish “hacking, unauthorized access, and potential of manipulation of election results.”
Coalition for Good Governance, the group filing the lawsuit, claims that election officials in the state “almost immediately” began destroying evidence after a 2017 lawsuit alleged Georgia’s voting machines were outdated and vulnerable to hacking.
“The evidence strongly suggests that the State’s amateurish protection of critical election infrastructure placed Georgia’s election system at risk, and the State Defendants now appear to be desperate to cover-up the effects of their misfeasance — to the point of destroying evidence,” the lawsuit reads.
The accusations were rejected shortly after by Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who said the report released Thursday by the Senate Intelligence Committee clearly indicates that no machines were manipulated and no votes were changed, CNN reports.
“The office is also in the process of replacing the state’s current voter machines with machines that print a paper ballot for an added layer of security. Those new machines will be in place by the March 24, 2020 Presidential Preference Primary,” Raffensperger added.
The machines currently in use will continue to be used throughout this year for special and municipal elections.
The Thursday lawsuit says state officials undertook a broad effort to destroy “fundamental” evidence, which “is not merely relevant and unique, it is fundamental, and it is forever gone.”
“After abundant notice of their well-known duty to preserve evidence, the State Defendants did not simply neglect to disable some automated purge function in their IT systems. Rather, they intentionally and calculatingly destroyed evidence,” the lawsuit alleges. “Such conspicuously outrageous conduct can only raise the question: What were the State Defendants trying to hide?”
The state’s voting systems came in the public eye after Republican Brian Kemp narrowly won over Stacy Abrams in the 2018 state governor race. Voters in the state reported malfunctioning machines and long wait times.
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