By Mary Fanning and Alan Jones | November 5, 2022
In 2013, Michigan-based KONNECH, the election management software company accused of storing data on servers in China, submitted a “confidential and proprietary” proposal to election officials in Jefferson County, Missouri, near St. Louis.
KONNECH’s proposal, which was marked on each page as ‘Confidential and Proprietary,’ reveals that KONNECH’s flagship software platform, PollChief, tracks and collects a far wider swath of extremely sensitive election information than the mainstream media has thus far reported — election data that U.S. adversaries such as China could weaponize during cyberwarfare operations targeting U.S. elections.
KONNECH’s ‘Cloud-based’ PollChief system tracks the locations and movements of serialized equipment such as voting machines, scanners, and tabulators, as well as memory cards, election ballots, chain of custody data, election staff payroll, and election judges (adjudicators), according to an analysis conducted by The American Report of KONNECH’s 2013 Jefferson County proposal.
KONNECH’s PollChief platform collects and transmits election-related data over the internet and relies on Android and iPhone smartphones, RFID, and other technology that could be vulnerable to hacking, according to information contained in KONNECH’s 2013 proposal.
The breadth of data that KONNECH vacuums up from election operations in the U.S. counties where it operates goes far beyond the mere scheduling of labor shifts of election workers.
In the wake of the arrest of KONNECH CEO Eugene Yu after his indictment by Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, the mainstream media, in the course of its extremely limited and skewed coverage of the case, has maintained the very deceptive, tunnel vision narrative that KONNECH has little involvement in US elections beyond providing software to manage the labor schedules of poll workers. Yu was arrested “on suspicion of stealing data on hundreds of Los Angeles County poll workers,” according to the Associated Press.
The true picture is far worse.
KONNECH’s data harvesting tentacles reach far and deep into troves of both personal and technical data that is used to manage U.S. elections.
This sort of sensitive election data, were it to fall into the hands of a major US adversary such as China, could leave U.S. elections even further vulnerable to sophisticated cyber warfare attacks.
According to True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht and her research partner Gregg Phillips, who were jailed in Texas earlier this week by U.S. Marshals for contempt of court on the orders of U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt after Engelbrecht and Phillips refused to divulge the name of a confidential informant they worked with on exposing KONNECH’s practice of storing US election data in China.
KONNECH’s PollChief platform features a “Smart phone App”:
This gives China a map to where the direct-recording electronic voting machines (DREs), scanners and tabulators, by serial numbers, are located.
KONNECH’s PollChief system was originally designed for the City of Detroit:
KONNECH’S PollChief At-A-Glance staffing profile tracks poll workers by race, age, sex, language, and political party:
PollChief Asset Management System (PAMS) Tracks Election Equipment Including “sensitive, serialized items such as voting machines, scanners, security seals, and tabulators”
According to KONNECH’s website:
PollChief® Asset Management System (PAMS)
Election asset management is far more complex than other industries’ asset management. The assets include not only supply items such as pens, power cords, parking signs, handicap ramps, and privacy booths, but also sensitive, serialized items such as voting machines, scanners, security seals, and tabulators.
Effective and efficient election asset management should be seamlessly integrated within the election management system. With PAMS, Election Administrators will find that election asset management is integrated into the daily workflow. For example, PollChief® Site Survey App counts usable onsite assets such as tables and chairs at voting locations and records where election gear will be stored when not in use. PollChief® iPAMS mobile app guides the logic and accuracy testing of equipment so each piece is ready for delivery with the precinct specific information updated. PollChief® Check-Out/In mobile app monitors all the deployment of assets using RFID, barcode scanning, or just a simple tap on the screen of the laptop, Android device, or smartphone.
KONNECH Also Tracks Voting Equipment “Delivery Routes And Maps,” Election Memory Cards, And Voter Machine History
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Heaped Praise On Eugene Yu’s KONNECH; KONNECH “chose Michigan for the project over a competing site in Los Angeles or the possibility of keeping the jobs in offshore locations“
According to a December 9, 2021 Michigan Economic Development Council press release, “Leading software provider Konnech creating up to 51 high-wage jobs in East Lansing”:
Mid-Michigan continues to secure its position as a hub for high-tech jobs as Okemos, [Michigan]-based Konnech, a leading provider of election management software, expands and establishes its headquarters in East Lansing with support from the Michigan Strategic Fund, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation announced today.
The project is expected to generate a total capital investment of $293,610 and create 51 well-paying new jobs over a two-year period. The company chose Michigan for the project over a competing site in Los Angeles or the possibility of keeping the jobs in offshore locations.
“Konnech’s growth is great news for our state, our families, and our economy, and further underscores the competitive advantages our state has to offer growing tech businesses,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
COPYRIGHT 2022 MARY FANNING AND ALAN JONES