Over the past month there has been growing public attention regarding reports that technicians – hired by the Trump campaign and assisted by one of the “fake electors”– accessed and copied voting system software in Coffee County, Georgia in early 2021. The voting system software breach in Georgia was uncovered entirely through discovery generated by the plaintiffs in the Curling v. Raffensperger lawsuit. (Curling v. Raffensperger challenged Georgia’s current touchscreen voting technology in 2019, and does not allege any election was fraudulent.) 

In order to help untangle many of the complex elements of this developing matter, Free Speech For People co-hosted, on September 21, 2022, a press briefing with the Coalition for Good Governance, the organizational plaintiff in the Curling case, that included Susan Greenhalgh, FSFP’s Senior Advisor for Election Security. The briefing also featured Marilyn Marks, Executive Director for the Coalition for Good Governance, Professor Philip Stark, and Bruce Brown, lead attorney for the Coalition.

The briefing discussed the ways the release of the software could impact future elections and examined how Georgia’s reliance on electronic ballot marking devices increases the vulnerability of its system. Participants also discussed the timeline of events in Coffee County, which includes multiple red flags that should have been cause for the Georgia Secretary of State to investigate. Instead, the Secretary of State’s office did not act to investigate security concerns in Coffee County for more than a year, and acted only after pressure mounted from the plaintiffs and the press. 

The briefing can be viewed here.