{"id":1684136,"date":"2022-10-11T17:32:57","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T21:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1684136"},"modified":"2022-10-11T17:33:16","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T21:33:16","slug":"fairfax-county-virginia-terminates-relationship-with-software-company-caught-storing-poll-worker-data-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fairfax-county-virginia-terminates-relationship-with-software-company-caught-storing-poll-worker-data-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Fairfax County, Virginia Terminates Relationship With Software Company Caught Storing Poll Worker Data In China"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffairfax-county-virginia-terminates-relationship-with-software-company-caught-storing-poll-worker-data-in-china%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1684136&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Fairfax County, Virginia has officially terminated its relationship with the U.S. software company Konnech after it was revealed that the tech firm allegedly stored the data of American poll workers in China. <\/p>\n<p>In an email dated Oct. 6, Fairfax County Office of Elections General Registrar Eric Spicer <a href=\"https:\/\/fairfaxgop.org\/information-for-election-officers-on-konnech-software\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote<\/a> that as of Oct. 5, the department had \u201cceased its use of \u2018PollChief,\u2019 a [Konnech] software package that stores and manages information on election officers\u201d and that it had asked the County Purchasing Agent to submit a \u201cNotice of Contract Termination\u201d to Konnech to \u201cend the county\u2019s contract with the company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the termination document, election officials demanded that the software company immediately \u201cprovide Fairfax County with a copy of all of our election officer data,\u201d \u201ctake down all of [the county\u2019s] public facing systems,\u201d and \u201cdelete all of [the county\u2019s] customer data.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are exploring alternatives to secure the best possible election officer management system,\u201d Spicer wrote. \u201cIn the interim, we will do our best to ensure that communicate effectively with election officers and political party representatives and that we maintain and provide all required information. I am very confident that we will meet this challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Information stored by PollChief includes the \u201cname, mailing address, phone numbers, email address and date of birth\u201d of poll workers, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/fairfaxgop.org\/information-for-election-officers-on-konnech-software\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">press release<\/a> by the Fairfax County GOP. <\/p>\n<p>The move by Fairfax election officials to terminate the county\u2019s relationship with Konnech came a day after the Office of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gasc\u00f3n <a href=\"https:\/\/da.lacounty.gov\/media\/news\/head-election-worker-management-company-arrested-connection-theft-personal-data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">arrested<\/a> Konnech CEO Eugene Yu \u201con suspicion of theft of personal identifying information.\u201d In addition to seeking Yu\u2019s extradition to Los Angeles, Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s office \u201cfound that in contradiction to the [Los Angeles County] contract, information was stored on servers in the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In addition to Fairfax County, the city of Detroit, Michigan also <a href=\"https:\/\/wdet.org\/2022\/10\/07\/detroit-terminates-contract-with-election-software-company-named-in-data-breach-investigation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a> that it would be ending its contract with Konnech.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to Yu\u2019s arrest on Oct. 4, New York Times reporter Stuart Thompson <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/05\/nyt-pretends-to-debunk-poll-worker-conspiracy-one-day-later-the-election-deniers-were-vindicated\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lambasted<\/a> \u201celection deniers\u201d and \u201cconspiracy theorists\u201d for expressing concerns over Konnech\u2019s potential connections to the Chinese government. In a bid to further smear Americans who have legitimate concerns about the security of U.S. elections, Thompson proceeded to throw all aspects of journalistic integrity out the window and take Yu at his word that \u201cnone of the accusations were true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Within the next day, Thompson was forced to issue a follow-up story detailing Yu\u2019s arrest and the revelation that his firm reportedly stored poll worker data in China.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fairfax County, Virginia has officially terminated its relationship with the U.S. software company Konnech after it was revealed that the tech firm allegedly stored the data of American poll workers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1684136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1684136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}