After Bungling Public Trust With Voters’ Data, Kemp Says Trust Me This Time

Georgia’s election databases are not at risk of being hacked, even after Arizona and Illinois suffered data breaches, according to the man in charge of the office that inadvertently leaked 6.2 million Georgians’ voter information.

Despite the growing warning signs and several high-profile missteps at the Secretary of State’s office, Brian Kemp wants you, dear reader, to believe he can do a better job of protecting voter security than the Department of Homeland Security.

Speaking to Atlanta’s WABE, Kemp said voter data security:

“[Has] been in our radar, it will continue to be on our radar. We’re working hard everyday to make sure that those type of things don’t happen in Georgia. And then if for some reason they were to happen, we have plans to deal with that.”

Kemp declined to give specifics on the measures, citing security reasons. Kemp recently declined an offer by the Department of Homeland Security for cyber security assistance, raising concerns about the federal government’s intrusion.

“I think we’re all having to deal with the systems, we know them the best. This is part of our job,” Kemp said.  “For us to have to even, I think, try to explain this to others would take away from doing the work of keeping the system secure or reacting to something that’s going on right at this moment.”

Oh. Well that’s reassuring.

And to further allay any worries, Kemp offered this flawless piece of logic to explain why Georgia’s voting mechanisms are safe: “If we’re a sitting duck, why hasn’t somebody done this already?”

It’s fairly arrogant to not ask for a little bit of help regardless of what the SoS’ office has done in the past. But to also rely on Republican cliches to reject the offer? I suppose I can take comfort knowing every policy is him angling for a gubernatorial bid in a few years.

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