At a Dec. 7 House hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray declined to answer questions about whether the bureau retained data on a Georgia election server before it was wiped clean by state election officials, then declined to answer whether the FBI was investigating the matter. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) raised the specter of an investigation into a server containing voting data from a recent special election to fill the seat vacated by Tom Price, who resigned from the House of Representatives to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services before resigning from that post. … Joe Kiniry, CEO of Free and Fair, a company that tests election systems for cybersecurity vulnerabilities, praised Johnson’s line of questioning. He said the combination of Georgia’s reliance on paperless voting, outsourcing of election operations to a third-party and “really bad security processes” by KSU created a perfect storm that inevitably led to lawsuits but also opportunity. “I believe that the positive outcome of all of this will be that, eventually, Georgia will replace its election system with machines that have paper ballot records, Kiniry said.
However, he expressed skepticism that the incident would lead to widespread change. He noted that there are currently around 20 bills pending in Congress to address election security that have not been seen significant movement.
On Dec. 6, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) hinted the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian election interference would largely avoid legislative proposals to Congress and instead focus on recommending best practices to state and local governments.
If Russian interference coupled with what’s going on in Georgia [and other states] doesn’t get a bill out of committee, then nothing will,” Kiniry said.
Full Article: Is the FBI investigating Georgia’s wiped election server? — FCW.