October 5, 2022
Statement - On the recent Arrest of Eugene Yu, CEO of Konnech Inc., Elections Software Company
A bombshell arrest follows allegations that a Michigan company specializing in election software in the United States has been storing personal information of American election workers on a server in China.
Elections software company Konnech Inc.’s CEO Eugene Yu has been arrested and held on suspicion of theft of personal identifying information. While the arrest was specific to the work Konnech does in Los Angeles, one of the largest voting areas in the country, Konnech’s website states the company also has contracts with 32 other elections administration entities in North America and has been involved in thousands of elections for more than two decades. It is not known yet if any election workers’ personal information has been compromised by having their information stored on a server in China.
Hogan Gidley, Vice Chair of the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute, issued the following statement:
“This is as terrifying as it is infuriating. If true, it strikes another blow to the integrity of our elections systems and endangers the personal data of American citizens — subjecting individuals to the risk of bribery, extortion, hacking, identity theft, and foreign surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party. This situation also compromises our election workers specifically, which is extremely dangerous because they are a vital part of conducting elections. The Center for Election Integrity condemns any actions that endanger or compromise American elections, individual votes, and individual voters.”