Secretary of State Brian Kemp has asked federal officials to explain what appears to be an attempt by the U.S. Homeland Security Department to breach Georgia's voter registration database.
The claim comes after an IP address associated with federal agency attempted to penetrate the state’s firewall . David Dove, the chief of staff and legal counsel in the Secretary of State’s Office, said Thursday that the attempt was not successful. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kemp publicly questioned alarms raised by federal officials before the presidential election over the issue of election security.
Georgia was one of two states that did not accept federal help to secure its election-related systems, after the FBI’s cyber division warned states in August that it was investigating hacking-related incidents related to elections data systems in two states — believed to be Arizona and Illinois.
A month later, state officials said Georgia was not one of 20 states that had voter registration systems targeted in recent months by hackers.
That claim came after FBI Director James Comey told House Judiciary Committee members that his agency has detected a variety of “scanning activities” related to election systems in the United States.
Ballot security was one of the hottest topics in the presidential election year, stoked by President-elect Donald Trump’s claim that he needed his own poll monitors to prevent a “rigged” election.
Georgia officials, meanwhile, sought to assure voters about the measures they took to minimize any threat. No major problems were reported through the election.