Senior federal information security official also a member of a private group investigating electoral fraud



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“The integrity of voters must be important to everyone, and a failed or flawed contest undermines the legitimacy of our democracy.” As a volunteer for this project and former campaign political data specialist, I use my skills to increase the transparency and accountability of our electoral process rigorously modeling and evaluating publicly available election results, ”said Sandoval , a person named by Trump, in a series of text messages with CNN.

“The results of our findings should be fascinating to everyone, Republican or Democrat.”

But local, state and federal officials across the country said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. And although Voter Integrity Fund founder Matt Braynard told CNN the group found evidence of voters voting illegally across state lines, they have not made any public evidence. Multiple lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign and others have been dismissed out of court.
Chris Krebs, the Trump administration official responsible for helping states secure their elections, has stepped up efforts to reject false claims by President Donald Trump and his supporters. His agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, released a statement last week with state and private election officials saying: “There is no evidence that a voting system has suppressed or lost votes, changed votes or has been compromised in any way. “

Several federal officials work in the Voter Integrity Fund, according to Braynard, who is based in his apartment in northern Virginia.

“It’s neither illegal, unprecedented, or you can make that argument, but I would also say it’s clearly (ethical),” Braynard said.

The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while on official duty, making it illegal for any federal official in the group to use government resources or rely on their government titles. Federal officials working for the group are on leave from their federal government jobs, according to Braynard.

Yet officials are on a potentially slippery slope.

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“All it would take is a slip of a few words,” said Nick Schwellenbach, a senior investigator with the nonprofit monitoring group Project on Government Oversight and an Obama-era spokesperson for the Office of the Special Advisor at the Washington Post. “Even if they stay on the right side of the law, they could be walking in dangerous territory.”

For his part, Sandoval, the federal head of information security, said he had no concerns about possible breaches.

“I volunteer as a data scientist, while on leave, to assess the data after election day and share the results for public review,” Sandoval told CNN.

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