Johnson County switching election worker management system after workers’ records were accessed without county approval

JOHNSON COUNTY, Kan. (KCTV) - Johnson County said it would transfer the PollChief election worker management system from Konnech to servers under Johnson County Government’s exclusive control on Friday. The move comes after Konnech allowed unauthorized access of data to a third-party vendor.

The county made the announcement Friday, citing the need for an “extra layer of security at the local level to prevent unauthorized access to the software and our data.”

In a release, Johnson County said there was no evidence of malicious activity, but that Konnech provided a third-party vendor access to PollChief for software development and technical support. That data included access to Johnson County election workers’ records.

The county said less than 10 percent -- or approximately 825 out of 9,800 -- workers driver’s license numbers were exposed. A driver’s license number is considered a personal identifying information under Kansas statute.

Individuals whose driver’s license number was exposed to the unauthorized third-party will be contacted by the county.

Johnson County said it began assessing potential risk to its election worker management system when Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was arrested as part of a Los Angeles County investigation involving the PollChief software. On Oct. 13, Yu was charged with criminal acts in Los Angeles County. His company is accused of sending personal identifying information of L.A. County election workers to non-U.S. based third-party contractors.

PollChief is not and has never been connected to the county’s voting machines or any vote tabulation, Johnson County reiterated during a release Friday. The company’s system is an election worker management and administration system only.

“We continue to focus on the security of our voting systems and stand by the integrity of Johnson County elections,” the county said Friday.

MONDAY UPDATE FROM COUNTY:

“We wanted to provide you an update to Friday’s news release (see below). Now with full access to the system, we discovered over the weekend that the PollChief database contains 763 social security numbers collected in 2016. The number of election worker records with personal identifying information (a social security number, a driver’s license or both) is now 1,319. The county notified the Sheriff’s Office this morning.
The county will contact all 1,319 poll workers and offer them free identity protection monitoring. Our analysis indicates that less than 15% of elections workers have personal identifying information in PollChief.
The Election Office continues to use the PollChief software on servers isolated from and under the exclusive control of Johnson County. There has been no evidence of malicious activity. As noted below, PollChief is not connected to voting, tabulation or any other county systems. PollChief continues to be an important tool to schedule and train poll workers for the current election.
There were discussions with the Sheriff in August but no specific information or mention of PollChief. We learned about allegations regarding PollChief system on the evening of Oct. 4 from the Secretary of State’s Office, and immediately began to take action. We have provided updates to the Sheriff and continue to cooperate with law enforcement and the District Attorney.”
Johnson County, Kansas