Report: Governor’s claim of Democratic hacking unfounded

ATLANTA — The Georgia attorney general’s office has concluded that there is no foundation to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s allegations that Democrats sought to hack the state’s voter registration system before his 2018 election.

The divisive race that in November pitted Kemp against Democrat Stacey Abrams, who called the accusations baseless at the time. Kemp beat Abrams by about 55,000 votes out of nearly 4 million cast.

A private citizen had identified critical vulnerabilities in the voter registration system just days before the election and alerted a volunteer with the state Democratic Party and an attorney for election security advocates who sued Kemp in mid-2017. That attorney also alerted Kemp’s office. Kemp was the state’s chief election officer as secretary of state at the time.

Kemp responded by accusing the state Democratic Party of trying to hack into the system. He offered no evidence but he asked the FBI to investigate his political opposition.

In a report Monday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Laura Pfister said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducted a thorough investigation and found no evidence of a crime. She recommended the case be closed.

Cybercrime specialists at the GBI, Georgia’s leading law enforcement agency, found “no evidence of damage to the (Secretary of State’s) SOS network or computers, and no evidence of theft, damage, or loss of data,” the report said.