Election Software CEO Arrested Over Suspected Poll Worker Data Theft

The founder and CEO of Konnech, a company at the center of many 2020 election denier conspiracy theories, was arrested on Tuesday under suspicion of data theft. Konnech is a small company that distributes PollChief, an election worker management software, to multiple municipalities around the U.S., including Los Angeles. Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested that a small American election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States, according to online accounts from several people at the conference. In a statement to The Washington Post, the company wrote, "We are continuing to ascertain the details of what we believe to be Mr. Yu's wrongful detention by LA County authorities." The company further said that "Any LA County poll worker data that Konnech may have possessed was provided to it by LA County, and therefore could not have been 'stolen' as suggested." Worth noting: Regardless of whether or not some of Konnech's data was stored on servers in China, LA County said that would've had no bearing on election results or vote counts. "This investigation is concerned solely with the personal identifying information of election workers. In this case, the alleged conduct had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results," the county's news statement said. "But security in all aspects of any election is essential so that we all have full faith in the integrity of the election process."