Georgia Election Server's Data Destroyed After Suit Filed

This is tremendously important news. It is far more important than who paid for oppo research during the last election, a non-story which has now consumed the media for days. This should be a national news story, especially given the constant refrain of hanging hope for restoring democracy on the 2018 midterm elections. Not if those elections are compromised garbage, we won't.

A computer server crucial to a lawsuit against Georgia election officials was quietly wiped clean by its custodians just after the suit was filed, The Associated Press has learned.

The server's data was destroyed July 7 by technicians at the Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University, which runs the state's election system. The data wipe was revealed in an email — sent last week from an assistant state attorney general to plaintiffs in the case — that was obtained by the AP. More emails obtained in a public records request confirmed the wipe.

The lawsuit, filed by a diverse group of election reform advocates, aims to force Georgia to retire its antiquated and heavily criticized election technology. The server in question, which served as a statewide staging location for key election-related data, made national headlines in June after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn't fixed six months after he reported it to election authorities.

It's not clear who ordered the server's data irretrievably erased.

The Kennesaw election center answers to Georgia's secretary of state, Brian Kemp, a Republican who is running for governor in 2018 and is the main defendant in the suit. A spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office said Wednesday that "we did not have anything to do with this decision," adding that the office also had no advance warning of the move.

The center's director, Michael Barnes, referred questions to the university's press office, which declined comment.

So, no one is talking about a server that was wiped after a lawsuit was filed in which its data would have been scrutinized. And among the people not talking is a Republican candidate for governor.

Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, which is one of the plaintiffs in the suit, says she believes the data was erased from the server to hide its security flaws. (Take a moment to appreciate the irony there.) She said: "I don't think you could find a voting systems expert who would think the deletion of the server data was anything less than insidious and highly suspicious."

Yeah. I don't think you could find a single rational adult without a corrupt agenda to undermine the integrity of our elections who would think it was anything less than insidious and highly suspicious.

The Republicans want to win at any cost. Including obliterating the very democratic process itself. That's something we need to be talking about every single day between now and the 2018 midterms — and doing everything we can to ensure they can't steal control of governance, on any level.

[H/T to Shaker Aphra_Behn.]