As reported by The Washington Post, “Federal and state investigators are examining an attempt to breach an Ohio county’s election network that bears striking similarities to an incident in Colorado earlier this year, when government officials helped an outsider gain access to the county voting system in an effort to find fraud.” That Colorado incident took place in Mesa County and involved county clerk Tina Peters, who’s an ally of Trump associate — and MyPillow founder/CEO — Mike Lindell. Peters has been blocked by a court from exercising any supervisory duties over upcoming elections, and this week, FBI agents raided her home. Lindell, meanwhile, has more ties to what went on in these locales.
The Ohio incident’s main follow-up has close ties to him — data that was obtained both there and in Colorado was presented at a symposium put on by the CEO, who hoped to orchestrate the revelation of evidence that proved the existence of non-existent election fraud. In Ohio, the attempted network breach unfolded in early May within the county office of Republican John Hamercheck, who serves as chairman of the Lake County Board of Commissioners. As summarized by the Post, investigators have “determined that a private laptop was plugged into the county network in Hamercheck’s office, and that the routine network traffic captured by the computer was circulated at the same Lindell conference as the data from the Colorado breach.” It’s notable that all the breacher was able to capture was “routine network traffic.” These buffoons are fumbling in the dark.
Hamercheck himself may have been involved in the Lake County incident, which the FBI has confirmed that it is investigating. Records from the date of the attempted breach show that he used his security badge to repeatedly access the offices where the incident took place throughout the period when it all unfolded. Hamercheck’s potential involvement mirrors the apparent official involvement in what happened in Colorado — Peters stands accused of bringing an unauthorized person into elections offices to copy data from machines made by Dominion Voting Systems, a firm that has repeatedly figured in pro-Trump, election-related conspiracy theories.
Before the Ohio and Colorado incidents, the Post notes that “county officials in both places — including Hamercheck — discussed claims of election fraud with Douglas Frank, an Ohio-based scientist who has done work for Lindell.” Frank’s ties are among the elements under investigation. Although sensitive data wasn’t obtained through the machinations of those involved in what went down — the Lake County, Ohio Board of Elections doesn’t even use the network to which the private laptop was connected and from which data was eventually share at the Lindell-backed gathering — the incidents in both Ohio and Colorado show the disturbing lengths to which the incompetent individuals involved in promoting claims of election fraud are willing to go in an attempt to back themselves up. Read more at this link.
