The former Republican Party official in Georgia who was a fake voter in 2020, misrepresented her part in an alleged violation of the voting equipment in the remote electoral’s office, two months following the presidential election in 2016, according to a court filing.
The late filing on Monday is part of a wider lawsuit seeking to challenge the security of Georgia’s voting machines. It has also been brought into an investigation into former president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in Georgia.
Video footage from the inside of the security camera at the Coffee County elections office shows Cathy Latham, the county Republican Party chair at the time, was greeted by a forensics computer team when it was able to arrive on Jan. 7, 2021. Latham presented the team to election officials in the local area and stayed the whole day in the office. The team was also given instructions on how to record and what to copy, which turned out to include “virtually every component of the voting system,” the document says. The video directly contradicts Latham’s statements in a deposition sworn to by a judge and her statements in the filings to the court, as the document says.
The complaint is in response to lawyers representing Latham’s trying to stop subpoenas to personal electronic devices she owns including computers, cellphones, or storage devices.
Robert Cheeley, an attorney for Latham has not responded to an email asking for a response. He had previously said that his client isn’t able to recall all the details of the day. However, he stated that she wouldn’t be involved in such activity and “has not acted improperly or illegally.”
Latham stated in an interview last month that she relocated to Texas during the summer. Then, in January 2021, she served as the Chair of the Coffee County Republican Party and was the caucus of the state party head for more than one hundred smaller counties in Georgia. Latham also was among the 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a declaration in December 2020 that falsely stated that Trump was the winner of Georgia and claimed that it was the only State’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
Trump has lost Georgia by more than 12,000 votes in the face of Democrat Joe Biden. The probe into Trump’s attempts to alter the outcome includes the phone call he made in the direction of the Georgia Secretary of State, who is a colleague of the Republican who suggested Trump could “find” just enough votes to give Trump a win.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis who is a Democrat and is in charge of the investigation has informed Latham as well as the other fake voters that they may be facing criminal charges.
It is believed that the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has decried copying of information from the Coffee County election system in the form of the result of an “alleged unauthorized access” and this month requested the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to become involved. This is the latest in a series of suspect security breaches to voting system information throughout the country that could be linked to Trump allies following his defeat in the presidential election.
Attorney Sidney Powell and other Trump allies were involved in organizing the copying of voting equipment used within Coffee County as part of an overall effort to gain access to voting equipment across various states, as per documents released by the government in response to subpoenas filed in the lengthy litigation concerning Georgia’s voting equipment.
A document that is attached to Monday’s filing juxtaposes quotes from the deposition of Latham with photos taken from surveillance footage which seem to contradict her claims.
Latham stated that she was going to work as a high-school teacher and then stopped at the office of elections for a brief moment during the afternoon. However, the film image of her arrival at the office is at 11:37 a.m. And the time stamps on other photos show her in the office for the majority throughout the entire day. The woman also stated that she did not have any particular people in her sights and only saw other people only briefly, however, the video images suggest otherwise.
The lawsuit, which includes the battle over Latham’s personal devices was initially filed several years prior to elections in 2020 by individual voters as well as members of the Coalition for Good Governance, an organization that advocates for security in elections. It claims Georgia’s voting devices with touchscreens aren’t secure and wants them replaced with hand-written paper ballots.
The filing on Monday said that the plaintiffs had identified a variety of documents that Latham was unable to provide as a result of a prior subpoena. The suit seeks to have an uninvolved third party make an interim forensic copy of her devices and then search for documents that are responsive.
