US Elections Offices Start Severing Ties With Software Firm After Chief Executive’s Arrest

Dan M. BergerOctober 10, 2022

Governments around the country are reconsidering contracts with a firm whose CEO was arrested last week on allegations of illegally storing election workers’ personal data on servers in China.

Eugene Yu was arrested on Oct. 5 near Lansing, Michigan—where his Konnech firm is based—on data theft charges lodged by Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascon. Storing such data offshore violates its contract with the county, Gascon’s office said.

Konnech subsequently lost contracts with Detroit and Fairfax County, Virginia.

Montana has had a relationship with Konnech going back to 2010 and at least some of it is ongoing, including online voting access for military, foreign, or disabled voters, according to the Western Montana News.

Marci McCarthy, GOP chair for Georgia’s DeKalb County, warned the county elections board Oct. 10, 2022 of the consequences of continuing to use Konnech software.

The Epoch Times received no response on Oct. 10 to emails or telephone calls to Montana secretary of state Christi Jacobsen.

However, the Elections Board of DeKalb County, Georgia, voted on Oct. 10 to continue its contract with Konnech.

The two Democratic appointees, plus the at-large member appointed by a judge, voted first not to sever the contract and then to require the data in question be held only on the county’s servers. The two Republican appointees opposed.

The county’s IT director assured the board that data using Microsoft Azure business software, like many other county systems, would be secure.

The board did not address the broader concerns county Republican chairwoman Marci McCarthy raised in a letter read during the meeting’s public comment period.

“My grave concern is that our active account could become inactive in a single moment, and doing so during 19 days of early voting or on Election Day could cause havoc with our election operations. We would have no advance