Current Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is also the Republican candidate for governor of Georgia, announced today that he was launching an investigation into the state Democratic Party, claiming that they had attempted to “hack” the voter registration system.
“While we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing investigation, I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes,” said Candice Broce, the press secretary for the Secretary of State in a statement. “We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure.”
Kemp said that his office has alerted the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security over the breach, but he offered up no evidence of his assertions of a hack.
Georgia has been a battleground in the midterms, with Kemp in a tight race against popular Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.
Rebecca DeHart, the executive director of the state’s Democratic Party, blasted this move by Kemp.
“To be very clear, Brian Kemp’s scurrilous claims are 100 percent false, and this so-called investigation was unknown to the Democratic Party of Georgia until a campaign operative in Kemp’s official office released a statement this morning,” DeHart said in a statement released early Sunday. “This political stunt from Kemp just days before the election is yet another example of why he cannot be trusted and should not be overseeing an election in which he is also a candidate for governor.”
Abrams herself took to “State of the Union” on CNN to speak out, calling Kemp’s move “a desperate attempt on the part of my opponent to distract people.”
Kemp, who, thanks to his position as Secretary of State, is in charge of overseeing his own run for the Governor’s chair.
In this election, Kemp has challenging the rights of hundreds of thousands in the state by improperly purging them from voter rolls. Over 1.5 million voters may have been removed over “exact match” rules and other attempts to stop people, primarily minorities, from voting in the midterm elections in Georgia.
Rolling Stone recently released audio of Kemp speaking privately to donors about the election, saying that Abram’s campaign “continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote.”
Image via screen capture from video source.