How a Small Election Firm Became a Conspiracy Theory Target


At an invitation-only conference in August at a secret location southeast of Phoenix, a group of Holocaust deniers uncovered a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential outcome.

Using flimsy, if any, evidence, the group suggested that a small US election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to the personal data of about two million tellers in the United States. , according to online accounts from several people at the conference.

In the weeks that followed, the conspiracy theory grew as it circulated the internet. For believers, the claims showed how China had gained near total control of US elections. Some shared LinkedIn pages for Konnech employees of Chinese descent and sent threatening emails to the company and its Chinese-born chief executive.

“Might want to book flights to Wuhan before you hang yourself to death!” one person wrote in an email to the company.

In the two years since former President Donald J. Trump lost his re-election bid, conspiracy theorists have subjected election officials and private companies that play major roles in elections to a deluge of extravagant claims for electoral fraud.

But the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right Holocaust deniers are also paying more attention to newer, more secondary companies and groups. Their claims often find a receptive online audience, which then uses the claims to raise doubts about the integrity of US elections.

Unlike other election tech companies targeted by election deniers, Konnech, a Michigan-based company with 21 employees in the US and six in Australia, has nothing to do with collecting, counting or reporting. ballots in the US elections. Instead, he helps clients like Los Angeles County and Allen County, Ind., with basic election logistics, like scheduling election workers.

Konnech said none of the charges were true. He said all his US customer data was stored on servers in the United States and he had no connection to the Chinese government.

But the complaints have had consequences for the company. Konnech founder and chief executive Eugene Yu, a US citizen who immigrated from China in 1986, went into hiding with his family after receiving threatening messages. Other employees also feared for their safety and began working remotely, after users posted details of Konnech’s headquarters, including the number of cars in the company’s parking lot.

“I cried,” Mr. Yu wrote in an email. “Other than the birth of my daughter, I hadn’t cried since kindergarten.”

The company said the ordeal required it to carry out costly audits and could threaten future transactions. He hired Reputation Architects, a public relations and crisis management firm, to help navigate the situation.

After conspiracy theorists discovered that DeKalb County in Georgia was about to sign a contract with Konnech, officials received emails and comments about the company claiming it had “connections with foreigners”. County Republican Party Chairman Marci McCarthy has heard so many members talk about Konnech that she echoed parts of the conspiracy theory during a public comment period at the County Board of Elections meeting. .

“We have a lot of questions about this vendor,” Ms. McCarthy said.

The county signed the contract shortly after the meeting.

“It’s a completely fabricated question,” Dele Lowman Smith, chairman of the board of elections, said in an interview. “It’s absolutely bizarre, but it’s part of the tone and tenor of what we have to deal with before the election.”

Although Konnech is a new target, those raising questions about the company include some names known to have spread election lies.

The recent conference outside of Phoenix was hosted by True the Vote, a nonprofit founded by prominent Holocaust denier Catherine Engelbrecht. She was joined on stage by Gregg Phillips, a voter fraud conspiracy theorist who often works with the band. The couple rose to prominence this year after being featured in ‘2000 Mules’, a widely debunked documentary claiming that a mysterious army of agents influenced the 2020 presidential election.

Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips claimed at the conference and in live streams that they investigated Konnech in early 2021. Eventually, they said, the group’s team gained access to the database. from Konnech by guessing the password, which was “password,” according to the online site. testimonials from people who attended the conference. Once inside, they told attendees, the team downloaded personal information on about 1.8 million voters.

The couple said they informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation of their findings. According to their story, officers briefly investigated their claim before turning against the group and questioning whether they had hacked the data.

The FBI’s press office said the agency “does not comment on complaints or advice we may or may not receive from the public.”

Konnech said in a statement that True the Vote’s claim that it had access to a database of 1.8 million voters was impossible because, among other reasons, the company had records on fewer than 240. 000 election workers at the time. And the records of these workers are not kept in a single database.

The company said it did not detect any data breaches, but declined to provide details about its technology, citing security concerns.

Konnech once owned Jinhua Yulian Network Technology, a subsidiary in China, where programmers developed and tested software. But the company said its employees have always used “generic ‘dummy’ data created specifically for testing purposes”. Konnech closed the subsidiary in 2021 and no longer has employees in China.

Konnech sued True the Vote last month, accusing it of defamation, violation of federal computer fraud and abuse law, theft and other charges.

The judge in the case granted Konnech’s request for an emergency temporary restraining order against the group, writing that Konnech faced “irreparable harm” and that there was a risk that True the Vote destroy evidence. The order also demanded that True the Vote explain how it supposedly obtained access to Konnech data.

True the Vote, Ms Engelbrecht and Mr Phillips said they could not comment due to a restraining order issued against them.

But in a social media livestream, Ms Engelbrecht said Konnech’s allegations were baseless. “True the Vote looks forward to a public conversation about Konnech’s attempts to silence scrutiny of its business through litigation,” she said.

Since the restraining order, True the Vote, Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips have told Konnech a new version of their story, changing several important details.

Mr. Phillips had explained in a podcast on August 22 that “my analysts” had had access to the data. But in a letter shared with Konnech’s attorneys, the group claimed a third party who “was not under contract with us or paid by us” had approached them, claiming they had Konnech’s data. This person, who was not named except in a sealed record, only presented a “screen share” of “certain elements” of the data. They added that although the group received a hard drive containing the data, they “did not view the contents”, but instead shared it with the FBI.

“True the Vote has never obtained or held the data described in your petition,” they wrote. “This is just one of many inaccuracies contained therein.”

The lawsuit did little to slow down the Believers, who continued to attack Konnech. Some employees left the company, citing the stress of the crisis, Mr Yu said. The departures added to the workload of remaining staff just weeks before the midterm elections.

As True the Vote showered Konnech customers with inquiries last year, Mr. Yu emailed Ms. Engelbrecht offering to help. True the Vote released this email exchange, including his unredacted email address and phone number, as well as a wealth of other company-related documents. This gave conspiracy theorists an easy way to target Mr. Yu with threatening messages. He now calls the email he sent naïve.

“As we researched who they were, it became increasingly clear that they had no interest in the truth,” he said. “For them, the truth is inconvenient.”

Alexandra Berzon contributed report.