Addressing Trump Allies’ Efforts to Copy and Distribute Voting System Software and the Increased Security Risks

Following Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, reports began to spring up of Trump supporters gaining unauthorized access to election equipment across multiple swing states. The reports suggested that the efforts were unconnected but evidence surfaced in 2022 that indicated otherwise.

Plaintiffs in a long-standing Georgia lawsuit filed in 2017, led by the Coalition for Good Governance (CGG), uncovered evidence that the voting equipment in Coffee County, Georgia had been unlawfully accessed. CGG is an allied organization to Free Speech For People, and Susan Greenhalgh, FSFP’s Senior Advisor for Election Security is a consulting expert to the CGG plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

After obtaining evidence that the voting system was improperly accessed, CGG successfully petitioned the Court for discovery regarding the breach in the Spring of 2022. Through records, emails, texts, surveillance videos, photographs, contracts, documents and depositions produced through court discovery, the plaintiffs amassed evidence that showed that Trump attorney Sidney Powell hired computer forensics operatives to go to Coffee County, and with the cooperation of the County’s election director and GOP county chair, copied all of the software on the voting devices. The records also revealed that the Georgia voting system breach was part of a larger, coordinated plot to similarly take software from voting equipment in other states and share it with the same network of Trump allies.

Surveillance footage, emails and contracts showed that operatives involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, including Doug Logan of Cyber Ninjas, traveled to Coffee a few weeks later to spend days accessing and “testing” the system. Furthermore, records and testimony showed that the copies of the voting system software were then shared covertly with a wide network of Trump allies and election deniers. And because Georgia uses one statewide voting system, this means that the exact same software taken from Coffee is used in Fulton, Dekalb and every other county in the state, and similar software versions are also used in other states putting all these systems at higher risk.

As this evidence was unfolding in 2022, Free Speech For People worked with CGG to sift through the discovery and publicize the findings. It became apparent that there was no federal investigation or response from either the Garland Justice Department, FBI, or Special Counsel Jack Smith to the unrefuted evidence of the plot. In response, Free Speech For People began a campaign to amplify press coverage and, working with a coalition of computer scientists,  call for a federal investigation into the software breaches.

Election security experts have warned that the stolen voting software puts future elections at risk.  In fact, before the election system breaches were publicly known, Dominion Voting Systems vigorously argued that the distribution of its voting software to biased, partisan entities would cause “irreparable damage” to the “election security interests of the nation.” And Georgia’s state Chief Information Officer testified that if potential adversaries obtained voting system software, it would give them a “road map” to hack the system.

To better understand the scope of the plot, Free Speech For People exhaustively analyzed testimony to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol and found evidence indicating that the scheme to take copies of election software was discussed in December 2020 with Donald Trump in the White House. This was reported by the New York Times and MSNBC.

The unauthorized access and distribution of voting system software by and among extremists that have a record of attempting to undermine free and fair elections introduced very real and serious threats to our elections and national security that warranted investigation and intervention by the federal law enforcement and security agencies. The absence of any federal action to investigate this breach, determine where the software had been shared, and prosecute those involved, put all subsequent elections at risk. Because of this increased risk, Free Speech For People and leading computer security experts urged Vice President Harris to seek recounts of paper ballots in swing states following the 2024 election.

In September 2022, Free Speech For People co-hosted a press briefing with CGG to share information about the Coffee County, Georgia voting system breach.

In December 2022, Free Speech For People led a coalition of cybersecurity and election security experts to write to the Department of Justice, Special Counsel Jack Smith, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to provide in detail the evidence uncovered in the CGG lawsuit that showed that Trump allies took copies of voting software and distributed them covertly among a network of Trump allies and election deniers.

In February 2023, Free Speech For People received a response from the FBI declining to investigate the alleged breach based on specious rationale and a lack of understanding of key facts. Free Speech For People responded and publicized the FBI’s response in the press.

After the January 6th Committee published documents and transcripts of depositions taken during its investigation, Free Speech For People reviewed the documents and discovered evidence indicating that the scheme to access voting system software was discussed with Donald Trump. We wrote again to federal law enforcement to share this information April 18, 2023.

MSNBC featured the FSFP letter citing evidence that tied Donald Trump to the voting software breaches in a segment with January 6th Committee member, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who affirmed that Trump knew of the plan.

Free Speech For People and CGG hosted another briefing on the developments in the Coffee County voting system breach.

In May 2023, we published an op-ed in Slate on the profound need for a federal investigation.

Following the filing of the Fulton County indictments, Free Speech For People published an additional oped in Slate, that underscored the need for a federal investigation with additional information and evidence.