The FBI is investigating a second local election data breach linked to conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, this time in Ohio, after raiding the home of a Colorado election clerk accused of leaking voting system passwords last week.
FBI and state investigators are looking at an attempted breach of an Ohio county's election system at the office of John Hamercheck, the Republican president of the Lake County Board of Supervisors, The Washington Post first reported last week. The incident appears to be similar to a data breach in Mesa County, Colorado, where election clerk Tina Peters is under federaI investigation after voting system passwords were leaked to right-wing blogs and QAnon conspiracy theorists. Data from both breaches were featured at the MyPillow founder's conspiracy-laden "cyber symposium" in August. Both Hamercheck and Peters discussed voter fraud claims with Lindell's sidekick Douglas Frank before the breaches, according to the Post.
State and county officials told the Post that no sensitive information was obtained in the Ohio breach but they determined that a private laptop was plugged into the county network at Hamercheck's office. Routine network traffic data obtained in the breach was distributed at Lindell's event.
The FBI confirmed that it is investigating the breach. A spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, told the Post that investigators believe that a government official "facilitated the attempted breach."
Officials said...
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