Konnech is an election software company which provides Poll Chief software for election worker management. It is used in a number of counties, including DeKalb in Georgia, Washoe County, Nevada; Fairfax County, Virginia; Detroit, Michigan; Los Angeles County, California; Prince William County, Virginia; Johnson County, Kansas; and Allen County, Indiana.
True the Vote, which seeks to ensure election integrity, investigated the company and was sued by it, alleging unauthorized access and “distribution of material gotten through such access.” It claimed in its complaint that “All of Konnech’s U.S. customer data is secured and stored exclusively on protected computers located within the United States.” Upon its allegations it received an immediate temporary restraining order.
Based on this litigation the New York Times reported:
From the N.Y. Times Monday:
At an invitation-only conference in August at a secret location southeast of Phoenix, a group of election deniers unspooled a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential outcome.
Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested that a small American election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States, according to online accounts from several people at the conference.
In the ensuing weeks, the conspiracy theory grew as it shot around the internet. To believers, the claims showed how China had gained near complete control of America’s elections. Some shared LinkedIn pages for Konnech employees who have Chinese backgrounds and sent threatening emails to the company and its chief executive, who was born in China….
Unlike other election technology companies targeted by election deniers, Konnech, a company based in Michigan with 21 employees in the United States and six in Australia, has nothing to do with collecting, counting or reporting ballots in American elections. Instead, it helps clients like Los Angeles County and Allen County, Ind., with basic election logistics, such as scheduling poll workers.
Konnech said none of the accusations were true. It said that “all the data for its American customers were stored on servers in the United States and that it had no ties to the Chinese government.”
Unfortunately, the company’s assertion was called into question the next day when the Los Angeles district attorney charged Eugene Yu, the CEO of Konnech, with stealing the personal identifying information of poll workers and storing them on servers in the People’s Republic of China.
But the story doesn’t end there. If you wonder why the information on poll workers might be of interest to the Chinese government, the answer seems to have been answered in the warrant for Yu’s arrest.
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