FBI investigates attempted breach of local election network in Ohio

The FBI is investigating an attempted breach of a local election network in the state of Ohio that occurred last spring.

State and county officials say that no private information or sensitive data was taken in the breach.

Routine network traffic that was captured during the Ohio breach was circulated at an event organized by Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow. Over the last year, Lindell has actively promoted the baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump.

At the Ohio event in August, copies of the software from voting equipment in Colorado and Michigan were distributed to attendees, alerting officials of the breaches.

The breach in Ohio is a part of a series of attacks on voting systems that have taken place across the country as vigilante hackers embrace the conspiracy theory despite there being no evidence of election fraud during the 2020 election.

A similar breach took place in Mesa county, Colorado, in late May. Local election officials have since been accused of allowing outsiders into the county election offices to copy the hard drives of election equipment. Earlier this week, the FBI raided the home of Tina Peters, the county clerk, after she was accused of facilitating the breach

According to the Post, county officials in both Ohio and Colorado discussed election fraud claims with Douglass Frank, a close associate of Lindell who has propagated claims of election fraud, before the breaches occurred.

Frank has told the Post that he has been traveling around the country and has met with about 100 election administrators in attempts to convince them election fraud took place.

Public records obtained by the Post show that Hamercheck used his security badge to access the fifth floor offices, where the breaches occurred, multiple times during the six-hour period when the private laptop was connecting to the election network.