True the Vote , the Texas - based non - earnings that ’s give itself to deny the validity of the 2020 election and spreading confederacy theories about voter fraud , was directly involved in the arrest of the CEO of a little election software party earlier this month . A ill from Gregg Phillips , a True the Vote display board member , first spur the LA County District Attorney ’s office to investigate the troupe , Konnech .
The DA ’s office ab initio claim that reliable the Vote and Phillips recreate no persona in its investigating , however the office forswear that call in an e-mail to Gizmodo send on Thursday . From LA County District Attorney ’s power spokesperson , Matthew Krasnowski :
Our Public Integrity Division ( PID ) routinely consent ill from the public . Often times , these complaints are made by political opposite of the impeach . With that in mind , if a crime is alleged we have a province to carry on an independent investigation . Greg Phillips ’ [ sic ] report to PID was the first step in a thorough main and still ongoing investigation which ultimately led to the check and charging of Mr. Yu . We ab initio point that Mr. Phillips play no persona in the probe . While we performed an independent investigation apart from Greg Philips [ sic ] , his account to us did in fact result in us initiating our investigation .
A Nevada poll worker during the 2020 primary election. Konnech and its CEO, Eugene Yu, are accused of mismanaging data on poll workers. The software company has contracts with multiple U.S. counties that use its services to schedule and manage election workers. Critically, none of the data in question relates to votes, voters, or election outcomes.Photo:Trevor Bexon(Shutterstock)
As a result of the on-going investigation , Konnech CEO Eugene Yuwas nail earlier this month . He has been charged with two felony : conspiracy to commit a crime and grand theft by embezzlement of public funds , according to a tourist court filing from LA County prosecuting attorney , partake in with Gizmodo on Thursday .
Konnech , which is based in Michigan and has about 20 employees , signalize a declaration with LA County in 2019 to allow the municipality with some election staffing , programming , and management services through its PollChief software . As a part of that contract , the company agreed that only “ staff who are based in the United States and are citizens or legitimate permanent occupant of the United States shall have access to any County data point , including in person identifiable information . ”
But , in trespass of that contract clause , some entropy about crown workers was send to third - party contractor based in China , who were help to troubleshoot and develop PollChief , according to the prosecutor ’s filing . The document cites internal ship’s company communication theory prevail via lookup warrant earlier in October . For representative , an email from projection managing director Luis Nabergoi sent the same twenty-four hours of Yu ’s taking into custody , which said Konnech was “ moving to a raw stage in the company maturity and we need to guarantee the security concealment and confidentiality or [ sic ] our customer data . ”
Both of the charges against Yu root word from the allegation of contract bridge violation : Conspiracy because the CEO allegedly live about the contract breach , and misapplication because the company accepted money from the county under pretended pretenses ( i.e. that it would not break the contract bridge ) . Konnech did not right away respond to Gizmodo ’s request for comment .
At one point , the troupe had 32 clients in North America , according toits website , including the City of Detroit and Dekalb County , Georgia . Since Yu ’s catch , Detroit and two county have ended their contract with Konnech . However , Dekalb and LA county have opted to keep their contract break down through the coming midterm elections , allot toa reportfrom The New York Times .
Critically , even if poll proletarian data was shared with two submarine - contractors in China , there is no evidence of any indistinguishability theft resulting from that . Further , whether or not election actor data was shared has no bearing on election results , suffrage totality , or anything else which would relate to True the Vote ’s unfounded , elector put-on conspiracy possibility .
True the Vote hasproudly taken creditfor its cast in Yu ’s arrest . And though election deniers are likely to admit onto the case against Konnech as grounds of their purview , the allegement against the company and its CEO have nothing to do with election outcomes .
And without thedogged targetingof Konnech by True the Vote , it ’s undecipherable if the issue of information management would ’ve resulted in such sound transactions at all . As the NYT pointed out , “ it is rarefied for an executive to confront felonious charge for potentially mishandling information . ”
Yu is scheduled to be arraigned Friday . If convicted of the two felony direction , the executive could front a total of eight years in prison .
GizmodoLaw , Crime
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