Johnson County says it is looking into whether any county election workers had their personal data stolen, after the CEO of an election software company was arrested Tuesday for the alleged theft of election worker information.
What we know: On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced the arrest of Eugene Yu, founder and CEO of Konnech Corporation, on suspicion of personal identity information theft.
- The Michigan-based company makes a software that’s used for managing and scheduling poll workers, which is used in Los Angeles and other jurisdictions around the country.
- According to a release from the LA District Attorney’s Office, the investigation is only focused on stolen personal information of election workers and not voters.
- The software Konnech makes is used to assist with making poll worker assignments, election office communications and payroll.
- Because of this, it also requires election workers to submit personal identifying information.
- The investigation has not found any evidence of stolen personal information from voters, nor did the alleged theft impact election results, officials in Los Angeles say.
Why it matters here: Konnech Corporation distributes and sells a software called PollChief, which is used by various local election offices — including Johnson County.
- Updated: On Wednesday afternoon, Theresa Freed, a Johnson County spokesperson, issued the following statement:
Johnson County election worker data statement
“The Johnson County Election Office uses PollChief to communicate with and to assign poll workers. The Johnson County contract requires the data be stored on a server within the United States. We learned yesterday that the owner of the Michigan-based company was arrested for alleged theft. Eugene Yu is accused of violating a contract with Los Angeles County by storing election worker data outside of the United States. It’s unknown at this time if Johnson County poll worker data was stored in a manner that violated the contract.
The Johnson County contract does not use the full functionality of the software and does not include payroll. We encourage anyone who suspects they’ve been the victim of identity theft to contact law enforcement. We continue to monitor the situation and will act immediately if we learn Johnson County poll worker information has been compromised. More than 6,000 past and present Johnson County poll workers have received notification of this issue.
We continue to stand by the integrity of Johnson County elections. ”
