Georgia election indictment highlights wider attempts to illegally access voting equipment

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August 16th, 2023

This Jan. 7, 2021, image taken from Coffee County, Ga., security video, appears to show Cathy Latham (center, long turquoise top), introducing members of a computer forensic team to local election officials. Latham was the county Republican Party chair at the time. Four people — including Latham — face six counts related to the breach in Coffee County, including conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft and conspiracy to defraud the state. (Coffee County, Georgia via AP)

A day after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, as the country was still reeling from the violent attempt to halt the transfer of presidential power, a local Republican Party official greeted a group of computer experts outside the election office in a rural county in south Georgia, where they were given access to voting equipment.

Their intent was to copy software and data from the election systems in an attempt to prove claims by President Donald Trump and his allies that voting machines had been rigged to flip the 2020 election to his challenger, Democrat Joe Biden, according to a wide-ranging indictment issued late Monday.

Several of those involved are among the 19 people, including the former president, charged with multiple counts in what Georgia prosecutors describe as a “conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”

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