ATLANTA — The South Georgia election director who allowed tech experts to copy the state’s voting software in the wake of the 2020 presidential race was hired to run a special election in another rural county soon afterward, leading investigators to confiscate its election server this spring.
The decision to hire Misty Hampton in Treutlen County has drawn scrutiny from county commissioners who question why their county manager, a Republican candidate for secretary of state last year, would employ Hampton after she was forced out from Coffee County.
Security camera video showed that Hampton permitted confidential election data to be copied by computer analysts hired by Sidney Powell, who was an attorney for Donald Trump, in January 2021. The data was later distributed through a file-sharing website to conspiracy theorists who denied the results of the presidential election, which Trump lost.
No one involved in the incident is facing criminal charges so far, but the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been investigating since last August, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has indicated she could soon announce charges related to whether Trump and his allies criminally interfered with the 2020 election.
Investigators for the secretary of state’s office took Treutlen County’s elections server in April after learning Hampton had managed special elections there in spring 2021. It’s unknown whether Hampton allowed outside access to elections equipment in Treutlen as she did in Coffee.
“We secured that server in Treutlen County as part of an ongoing investigation,” said Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office. “This office takes elections security seriously and wants to preserve public trust.”
Treutlen County Manager T.J. Hudson has said he hired Hampton because he knew her from her prior work as an elections manager in Coffee County. He didn’t seek County Commission approval before hiring Hampton and paying her $20,000 for the temporary job.
“You have to have a certified person to run elections in the county. We didn’t have anybody that we could reach out to. I reached out to her,” Hudson told commissioners during a June 5 meeting. “There have not been any problems.”
Hudson, a former probate court judge who resigned amid a state investigation of ethics violations, finished in last place among four Republican candidates during last year’s primary for secretary of state. As a result of allegations that he wrongly sentenced a person to jail time, Hudson agreed not to seek judicial office for seven years.
Hudson declined to comment Thursday and referred questions to the county attorney, who didn’t return voicemails and an email. Commission Chairman Phil Jennings also didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. Hampton didn’t return a voicemail.
Election security advocates said they’re concerned that Hampton was given responsibility over Georgia’s elections equipment after she resigned from her job in Coffee County in February 2021. Hampton oversaw a special election and runoff election in May to July 2021 to replace Hudson as probate judge.
“Why he would hire somebody who was fired for committing a potentially illegal act raises so many questions,” said Susan Greenhalgh, senior adviser for the advocacy group Free Speech for People, which has filed records requests seeking more information from Treutlen County. “What was she doing with the equipment while she was there? We hope there will be a muscular effort from the GBI to find out what she was doing.”
In between Hampton’s jobs in Coffee and Treutlen, she traveled to Michigan for a dinner meeting with Ben Cotton, who worked on a Republican recount of the presidential election in Arizona, and with Stefanie Lambert, a pro-Trump defense attorney who filed lawsuits targeting Dominion Voting Systems and alleged election fraud theories that were later debunked. Cotton said in a deposition that Hampton was seeking legal representation from Lambert.
Hudson has said elections in Treutlen are secure.
“We don’t have anything to hide, so I don’t think (Hampton’s past) would have made a difference with me,” Hudson told 11 Alive last month. A security breach “wouldn’t have happened here. That’s something that I don’t allow.”
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