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ATLANTA (AP) – The office of US Secretary of State Brian Kemp, also a candidate for Republican governorship, said Sunday that he was investigating the Democratic Party of the US government as part of a attempted hacking of Georgia's online election database, used to register voters in polling stations during mid-term elections.
The statement provided no evidence to support the complaint and did not clarify the allegations against the Georgia Democrats. But it quickly became a last-minute highlight in one of the country's most contentious governor races as Tuesday's election drew near.
The Democrats saw this as further evidence that Kemp's office, which oversees the elections, served as an extension of his campaign as governor. Republicans, meanwhile, have described it as an example of Democrats trying to organize harmful votes. It's the same day that Kemp will campaign alongside President Donald Trump in Macon.
When he left the White House Sunday for Georgia, Trump said he was not informed of the situation and did not know anything about it.
Kemp's office said the federal authorities had been informed. The FBI refused to comment on the case. A representative of the US Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the agency had been informed, but Georgian officials were referred for further details.
Sunday's announcement came as the Coalition for Good Governance, which criticized Kemp, reported reports that one-third would have discovered that Georgia's online registered voters database – managed by his office – could be the subject of a hacking likely to change voter information or remove them. the list of registered voters altogether.
The University of Michigan computer scientist, Matthew Bernhard, has reviewed the reported loophole – which the Democratic Party on Saturday asked several computer scientists to review – and told the Associated Press that It could have allowed anyone with access to a voter's personal information to change an elector's record in the system.
The pointed finger is the last turning point of a campaign whose last weeks have been dominated by accusations of voter suppression and counter-accusations of attempted voter fraud.
Democrat Stacey Abrams, who would become the first black governor of the country if she won, described Kemp as an architect of the electoral crackdown and said he had used his position as election official to make it more difficult to vote. some voters. Kemp says it follows federal and federal laws and that it is about Abrams and its affiliated voting rights groups trying to help people, including non-citizens, vote illegally .
The atmosphere has left supporters and supporters of the good government worried about the possibility that the losing party will not accept Tuesday's results as legitimate. Polls suggest a tight race.
The charge is not Kemp's first to accuse foreigners of wanting to enter his office. Immediately following the 2016 general election, Kemp accused the Federal Department of Homeland Security of attempting to hack his office's network, a charge dismissed in mid-2017 by the DHS Inspector General as unfounded. .
Before even running for governor, Kemp was criticized for his electoral system.
The Georgian electoral system currently centrally managed does not have a verifiable paper trail that can be verified in the event of a problem. The state is one of only five countries to rely on old electronic voting machines that computer scientists have long criticized for their indignity, because they are easily hacked and leave no trace in writing.
Kemp has already been accused by election integrity activists of mismanagement of state elections as a top Georgian election official because of insufficient scrutiny and resistance to transparency, which they say , was necessary to give confidence to the process.
In 2015, Kemp's office inadvertently released social security numbers and other information that could identify millions of voters in Georgia. Kemp's office blamed a clerical error.
His office hit the headlines again last year after security experts revealed a gaping loophole that was only repaired six months after it was first reported to the electoral authorities. Personal data was again exposed for the 6.7 million Georgian voters, as well as the passwords used by county officials to access the files.
Kemp's office imputed this violation to Kennesaw State University, which operated the system on behalf of Kemp.
In the Integrity of the Vote case, a federal judge upheld the Complainant's arguments last month that Kemp had been abandoned in his management of the electoral system, which would violate the constitutional rights of voters because of his lack of verifiability and reliability.
Associate Press Editors Michael Balsamo, Colleen Long and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report.
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