Trump Has Taken a Renewed Interest in the Conspirators Who Infiltrated 2020 Voting Machines
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When President Donald Trump pardoned 1,500 people convicted of crimes related to the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, he used the power of the presidency to protect convicted criminals whom he incited to stop the certification of his electoral defeat in 2020 and the peaceful transfer of power.
Recently, in a blunt and ham-fisted attempt to again undermine the rule of law, he used his social media bullhorn to call for the release of Tina Peters. The former Colorado county clerk was last year convicted of crimes committed in 2021 in order to facilitate unauthorized access to Colorado's voting system.
This may be regarded as simply another instance of Trump's immoral support for those who tried to help him steal an election. But the scheme Peters was involved in—to improperly access voting systems and make unauthorized copies of sensitive voting system software— has serious, ongoing implications for election security .
The Colorado plot was just one of several severe voting system security breaches that were carried out by Trump allies following the 2020 election. In Georgia , Pennsylvania , and Michigan , operatives hired by Trump-allied attorney Sidney Powell accessed voting systems and, in multiple instances, took copies of the software that records votes, counts votes, and reports vote totals. The voting software was then shared with a network of Trump loyalists , like in Peters' scheme in Colorado.
Unlike in Colorado, no criminal investigation was ever initiated in Pennsylvania. In Georgia, despite overwhelming video and documentary evidence of the illegal voting system security breaches, neither the Trump-supporting local prosecutor or state attorney general brought any charges. Only Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sought to hold anyone accountable for the Georgia software heists . She charged computer theft, computer trespass, and computer invasion of privacy in the Georgia RICO case , successfully obtaining a guilty plea for the charges stemming from the software breaches from Powell and another accomplished before the case fell apart for unrelated reasons. In Michigan, criminal trials are pending for only three individuals, though more were implicated.
What is important here is how this returns to Trump. More than three years ago evidence surfaced showing that the breaches in Georgia , Michigan , and Pennsylvania were all coordinated and financed by Powell. Records also indicate that many of the same people were involved in all the plots, including in Colorado, and that copies of the software were shared across state lines, suggesting a broad, coordinated, multistate effort that could implicate federal crimes.
Instead of investigating, the feckless Merrick Garland Department of Justice and FBI ignored it. So when Trump returned to office, there had been no federal investigation to determine what happened to the voting system software, how far it was shared, and where it is now. That same software is still in use in many states across the country, counting votes.
Having copies of the proprietary voting system software could allow a bad actor to study it for weaknesses and develop ways to tamper with voting counts , with minimal physical access. And that's exactly what some of those involved have done. Matt DePerno, who is currently awaiting criminal trial in Michigan on charges associated with unauthorized voting system access, reportedly told an audience that he had a “lab” where he could manipulate vote counts with ease. Jeff Lenberg, a computer technologist involved in the breaches in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia, made a video demonstrating how to compromise vote totals with software allegedly obtained in the breaches.
The spotty and limited state-level criminal probes have focused only on the actual access to voting machines. There has been no evidence of any investigation aimed at tracking and recovering the misappropriated voting software, and no known effort to mitigate the increased risks caused by the distribution of proprietary software into the wild.
With extraordinary yet predictable self-interest, the voting equipment vendors pointedly ignored the unauthorized appropriation, copying, and distribution of their proprietary intellectual property. Presumably to avoid exposing or amplifying existing election system security problems , no legal actions were brought by the vendors against those involved in taking and sharing the software. Similarly, state election officials confined their criticisms to the actual act of accessing the systems , heedlessly ignoring risks associated with the well-known and documented fact that the voting software was taken and shared by partisan actors.
In other words, this is the largest known breach of election system security in the US, ever, and it's been effectively swept under the rug.
Trump's interest in Peters' status renews questions about his knowledge of breaches. Testimony from the House Jan. 6 committee revealed that at the infamous “unhinged” meeting in the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, Trump was told by Rudy Giuliani that there were plans to gain access to voting systems and software. But it wasn't probed further by the committee or the DOJ.
Americans committed to democracy and voting rights are rightly fighting Trump's assault on elections and voting access. We can't afford to continue to ignore the voting system breaches, or forget that when Trump speaks on behalf of someone like Peters, he may very well have something more sinister in mind.
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