Video shows ‘unauthorized access’ to election equipment in Georgia

ATLANTA (AP) — A former Republican Party official in Georgia who was a fake elector in 2020 misrepresented her role in an alleged breach of voting equipment at a rural elections office two months after the last presidential election, a court filing says.

The filing late Monday is part of a broader lawsuit challenging the security of the state's voting machines that has been drawn into a separate investigation of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his loss in Georgia.

Interior security camera video from the Coffee County elections office shows Cathy Latham, the county Republican Party chair at the time, welcomed a computer forensics team when it arrived on Jan. 7, 2021, introduced the team to local election officials and spent nearly all day there. She also instructed the team what to copy, which turned out to be "virtually every component of the voting system," the filing says. The video directly refutes Latham's testimony in a sworn deposition and her representations in filings with the court, the document states.

The filing comes in response to Latham's attorneys' attempt to quash subpoenas for her personal electronic devices, including any cellphones, computers and storage devices.

Robert Cheeley, an attorney for Latham, did not respond to an email seeking comment. He previously said his client doesn't remember all the details of that day. But he said she "would not and has not knowingly been involved in any impropriety in any election" and "has not acted improperly or illegally."

Latham said in a deposition last month that she moved to Texas over the summer. In January 2021, she was chair of the Coffee County Republican Party and was the state party caucus chair for more than 125 of Georgia's smaller counties. Latham also was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring that they were the state's "duly elected and qualified" electors.

Trump in fact lost Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes to Democrat Joe Biden. The investigation into Trump's efforts to change the results includes a phone call he made to the Georgia secretary of state, a fellow Republican, suggesting he could "find" just enough votes to make Trump the winner.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat who's leading that investigation, has notified Latham and the other fake electors that they could face criminal charges.*