Scandal-plagued Election Software Company Konnech Has Significant Chinese Links

The Michigan-based election software company Konnech filed a defamation lawsuit against the Texas-based group True the Vote in September. True the Vote had accused the company of being both “owned by the Chinese Communist Party” and involved in “subversion of our elections.” Konnech denied the allegations, though its credibility is now in doubt.

On October 4, Konnech CEO Eugene Yu, who lived in China until 1986, was arrested on suspicion of data theft, having allegedly stored “critical information that [U.S. election] workers provided on servers in China.”

Prosecutor Eric Neff suggested that the crimes allegedly committed by Konnech and Yu amounted to the “largest data breach in United States history.”

Yu was charged again last week for grand theft by embezzlement of funds exceeding $2.6 million.

In addition to Yu’s arrest and the recent charges claiming his company stored sensitive American data on servers under the “superadministration” of Chinese contractors in a hostile nation, Konnech’s alleged connections to Chinese election firms have also come under scrutiny.

A new investigative report — part of an ongoing series of deep dives by Kanekoa News on Substack — detailed the links between a purportedly defunct Chinese-based Konnech subsidiary and major CCP-controlled telecoms designated as “national security threats” by the Federal Communications Commission.

‘China’s national conditions’

The criminal complaint filed by Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón’s office on October 13 claimed that from October 10, 2019, through October 4, 2022, Yu and other employees at Konnech were providing election software solutions to Los Angeles County “using third-party contractors based in China.”

Luis Nabergoi, project manager for Konnech’s contract with Los Angeles County, confirmed on August 18 that “any employee for Chinese contractors working on PollChief software had ‘superadministration’ privileges for all PollChief clients,” which constituted a “huge security issue.”

Kanekoa pointed out that while prosecutors referenced “Chinese contractors” and “third-party software developers,” they did not mention Konnech’s Chinese subsidiary.

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that “Konnech once owned Jinhua Yulian Network Technology, a subsidiary out of China, where programmers developed and tested software.” Konnech reportedly “closed the subsidiary in 2021 and no longer has employees in China.”

Yu reportedly created Jinhua Yulian Network Technology on November 29, 2005. The Konnech CEO registered the subsidiary’s website “yu-lian.cn” to [email protected] on in February 2006.

Despite its characterization by Konnech and the New York Times as a subsidiary just testing software with “dummy data,” the Jinhua Yulian Network Technology “About Us” page, archived December 7, 2013, tells a different story.

Its website (yu-lian.cn) stated Jinhua Yulian Software “has been focusing on providing election management software and election consulting services in line with China’s national conditions.”

According to Kanekoa, Jinhua Yulian Network Technology bid on Chinese communist government contracts to provide “electronic voting systems” as recently as 2018.

Kanekoa reported that Konnech’s Chinese connections did not end there.

“Patent transfers, employee profiles, and domain registrations divulge that Konnech is also profoundly connected to another Chinese software firm named Jinhua Hongzheng Technology,” which has partnered with numerous Chinese telecom giants with state ties, including Huawei, China Telecom,