Michigan Republican AG nominee behind plot to breach voting machines

More criminal behavior from the GQP.

TEXT:

The Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general led a team that gained unauthorized access to voting equipment while hunting for evidence to support former President Donald Trump´s false election-fraud claims.

An analysis of of court filings and public records shows that people working with Matthew DePerno - the Trump-endorsed nominee for the state´s top law-enforcement post - examined a vote tabulator from Richfield Township, a conservative stronghold of 3,600 people in northern Michigan´s Roscommon County.

The Richfield security breach is one of four similar incidents being investigated by Michigan's current attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel.

Under state law, it is a felony to seek or provide unauthorized access to voting equipment.

DePerno did not respond to a request for comment.

The involvement of a Republican attorney general nominee in a voting-system breach comes amid a national effort by backers of Trump´s fraud falsehoods to win state offices that could prove critical in deciding any future contested elections.

In Arizona last week, three Trump-backed candidates who claim the 2020 election was stolen won Republican primary elections for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, the top official overseeing elections.

In Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano has vowed to decertify any election he considers fraudulent through his appointed secretary of state.

Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania are all presidential election battlegrounds.

Trump lavished praise on DePerno before a large audience this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas.

'He´s going to make sure that you are going to have law and order and fair elections,' Trump said, pumping his fist as DePerno stood up in the audience and waved. 'That´s an important race.'

The Reuters news agency established the connection between Michigan's DePerno and the Richfield voting-system breach by matching the serial number of the township´s tabulator to a photograph in a publicly released report written by a member of DePerno's team.

The photograph showed a printed record of a vote-tabulator´s activity, which also included a string of ten digits.

Reuters confirmed that those numbers matched the serial number of a Richfield vote tabulator through public records obtained from the township. State officials had previously identified Richfield as the site of a voting-equipment security breach.

DePerno had submitted the report as evidence in a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in a different Michigan county, Antrim. The report claimed that Dominion and ES&S election equipment was vulnerable to hacking and vote-rigging.

Reuters asked an election-security expert to review the materials

Kevin Skoglund, president and chief technologist for the nonpartisan Citizens for Better Elections, an election-security advocacy organization, said the matching numbers indicate that DePerno´s team had access to the Richfield Township tabulator or its data drives.

DePerno led the 'Michigan Antrim County Election Lawsuit; Investigation Team,' which included himself, Detroit attorney Stefanie Lambert, private investigator Michael Lynch, and James Penrose, a former analyst for the National Security Agency, according to promotional material for a July 2021 fundraising event in California sponsored by a conservative group that advertised appearances by DePerno´s team members.

Penrose, who had assisted other prominent Trump allies in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, authored the report that Reuters tied to a tabulator involved in the Richfield Township security breach.

Lambert, Lynch and Penrose did not respond to requests for comment.

The previously unreported link to GOP attorney general candidate DePerno and his associates comes as Democratic incumbent Nessel advances her probe, which she launched in February 2022.

Nessel is seeking re-election, which would create a conflict of interest if her political opponent became a suspect in her office´s investigation.

The attorney general's office declined to comment on the specifics of its investigation but said Nessel would 'take appropriate steps to remove herself and her department should a conflict arise.'

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-backed-candidate-michigan-attorney-general-matthew-deperno-illegally-accessed-voting-equipment/ar-AA10q7Ep?cvid=59b0f27087ac421aaf36f508ec1276dc