Yu, Eugene (Technology Executive)

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    L.A. Drops Criminal Charges Against Election Software Executive

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    Before the arrest of its founder and chief executive, Eugene Yu, Konnech repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in statements to The New York Times.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesLos Angeles County dropped criminal charges against the top executive of an elections technology company on Wednesday, bringing to an abrupt end an unusual case that became the focus of Americans who distrust the country’s electoral system.The district attorney’s office said in a statement that it had dropped the case against the executive, Eugene Yu, because of concerns about the “pace of the investigation” and the “potential bias in the presentation” of evidence in the case. The office said the county had assembled a new team to “determine whether any criminal activity occurred.”The prosecutors did not respond to questions about the decision.“Mr. Yu is an innocent man,” Gary Lincenberg, Mr. Yu’s lawyer, said in a statement, adding that “conspiracy theorists” were using the arrest to “further their political agenda.”Last month, Los Angeles prosecutors accused Mr. Yu, the chief executive of Konnech, a small election software company in Michigan, of storing data about poll workers on servers in China, a breach of the company’s contract with the county. The charges related only to poll worker data and had no impact on votes or election results.Mr. Yu, 64, has repeatedly denied sending data to China. The New York Times published an article about the claims and his denials as a part of its coverage of misinformation and elections. Los Angeles prosecutors arrested Mr. Yu the day after the article was published.The abrupt dismissal left several unanswered questions about the case and Mr. Yu’s suspected activities. The district attorney’s office did not clarify whether the company had, in fact, stored data in China. It was also not clear whether additional criminal or civil charges could be filed against Mr. Yu or Konnech from Los Angeles County or dozens of other counties that use Konnech’s election management software.Konnech has about 20 employees in the United States and about 20 customers. It plays no role in the tabulation or counting of votes in American elections. But some election deniers have suggested that Konnech gave the Chinese government a back door to manipulate America’s election process.True the Vote, an organization that claims to be devoted to uncovering election fraud, said at a conference this summer that its team had found and downloaded Konnech’s poll worker data from servers in China. It provided no evidence that it had downloaded the data, but said it had delivered a hard drive to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Konnech sued True the Vote, along with Catherine Engelbrecht, its founder, and Gregg Phillips, an election denier and longtime associate of the group, accusing them of defamation and hacking. The pair were briefly jailed last week after refusing to release the name of a person involved in the suspected hack of Konnech’s data.In an earlier court filing, Mr. Phillips said he had spoken with the grand jury in Los Angeles County that eventually indicted Mr. Yu. More

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      Election Firm Knew Data Had Been Sent to China, Prosecutors Say

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      The executive of a small Michigan elections software company was charged with grand theft by embezzlement and conspiracy to commit a crime.Before the arrest of its founder and chief executive, Eugene Yu, Konnech repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in statements to The New York Times.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesWhen Eugene Yu’s small election software company signed a contract to help Los Angeles County organize poll workers for the 2020 election, he agreed to keep the workers’ personal data in the United States.But the company, Konnech, transferred personal data on thousands of the election workers to developers in China who were writing and troubleshooting software, according to a court filing that Los Angeles County prosecutors made on Thursday.The filing adds new details about the arrest last week of Mr. Yu, whose company has been the focus of groups challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election. Some of those groups have accused the company of storing information about poll workers on servers in China. Before the arrest, the company repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in statements to The New York Times.Los Angeles prosecutors initially accused Mr. Yu of embezzling public money by knowingly violating the terms of the company’s contract. Since searching Konnech’s offices and Mr. Yu’s home, the prosecutors have also accused him of conspiring with others to commit a crime, according to the new legal filing. It is rare for an executive to face criminal charges for potentially mishandling data. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday.In the filing, prosecutors said a project manager at Konnech had sent an internal email early this month saying the company would no longer send personal data to Chinese contractors. “We need to ensure the security privacy and confidentially,” the email said.In a separate message, sent in August, the project manager noted that the contractors had high-level access to all of the poll worker software used by its customers. He called it a “huge security issue.”The documents did not specify whether others were being investigated or would be charged, and the district attorney’s office declined to comment.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.Los Angeles prosecutors said last week that none of Mr. Yu’s or Konnech’s actions had altered election results and that they had seen no evidence of identity theft. They have not indicated any motive in their public statements.The prosecutors said that the charges focused on the handling of personal information about poll workers, such as their names and phone numbers, and that the data did not relate to ballots or the voting process. Still, with the midterm elections just weeks away, several counties that use Konnech software said they were rushing to reassure voters that their elections were secure.Mr. Yu’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Konnech, which is based in Michigan, has about 20 employees in the United States and about 20 customers. It plays no role in the tabulation or counting of votes in American elections.Nevertheless, some election deniers have targeted the company, saying they discovered the company’s data in China and suggesting that Konnech gave the Chinese government a back door to manipulate America’s election process. The New York Times published an article about those claims early last week, as a part of its coverage of misinformation and elections.Los Angeles prosecutors arrested Mr. Yu the day after the article was published, raising questions about the truthfulness of statements that Mr. Yu made to The Times just days earlier, when he denied the accusations and said poll worker data had never been stored in China.If convicted, Mr. Yu faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison for the charges of grand theft by embezzlement of public funds and conspiracy to commit a crime. He also faces an additional five years because the contract was valued at more than $500,000.A ballot-tallying center in Los Angeles County. Officials have said the county will continue to use Konnech’s software to manage data on about 12,000 to 14,000 poll workers for the midterm elections.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesThe district attorney’s office said it was sifting through a trove of documents seized in its search of Konnech’s offices and Mr. Yu’s home last week. If those files reveal similar crimes in other counties, prosecutors could hand off the case to federal investigators.More than 20 attorneys general, district attorneys and election officials have contacted the district attorney’s office over the past week, they said.Mark Kriger, one of Mr. Yu’s lawyers, said in a bond hearing last week that Mr. Yu had participated in two voluntary interviews several weeks ago with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Yu told the agency that he was not aware of any data from Konnech being stored in China, the lawyer said at the hearing.The F.B.I. agents were surprised to learn about Mr. Yu’s arrest, Mr. Kriger said at the hearing. A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. said she “wouldn’t be in the position to confirm or deny comments made by the attorney.”Mr. Yu, 64 and a Chinese-born American citizen, co-founded Konnech in 2002 as a phone technology company. He turned it into an elections software company in the late 2000s.In statements made to The New York Times before his arrest, Mr. Yu said that he had shuttered Konnech’s Chinese subsidiary in 2021 and that he no longer had employees there. Two people with knowledge of the company, who would speak only anonymously because of the legal proceedings, said it was known within Konnech that employees should avoid bringing up the use of Chinese contractors when talking to customers.Attention on the company surged in August and September after a conference hosted by Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of True the Vote, a nonprofit that claims to be searching for evidence of voter fraud, and Gregg Phillips, an election denier and longtime associate of the group.The group claimed that their team had discovered and downloaded Konnech’s data from servers located in China.Mr. Yu later sued the group for defamation, hacking and other charges, and hired a crisis management company. That case, based in Texas, is continuing.The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said its investigation began after Mr. Phillips had sent a tip to its public integrity division. When it announced the charges last week, the district attorney’s office told The New York Times in a statement that the group’s investigation had no input on the county’s investigation.After Mr. Yu’s arrest, Konnech sent an identical letter to several customers claiming that they had “never hosted your data or system in servers outside of the United States.”Fairfax County, Va., the City of Detroit, and Prince William County, Va., terminated their contracts with Konnech after Mr. Yu’s arrest.Los Angeles County said it would continue using Konnech software to manage data on about 12,000 to 14,000 poll workers for the midterm elections.Dekalb County in Georgia voted to keep its contract with Konnech, adding an amendment that the data would be stored on servers owned by Dekalb County instead of by Konnech.“We’re one week out from early voting starting in Georgia and run the risk of our election operations going awry from a company that is going down in flames,” Marci McCarthy, the chairwoman for the county’s Republican Party, said in an interview after the vote.“It’s not over,” she added. 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      Election Software Executive Arrested on Suspicion of Theft

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      The executive, Eugene Yu, and his firm, Konnech, have been a focus of attention among election deniers.The top executive of an elections technology company that has been the focus of attention among election deniers was arrested by Los Angeles County officials in connection with an investigation into the possible theft of personal information about poll workers, the county said on Tuesday.Eugene Yu, the founder and chief executive of Konnech, the technology company, was taken into custody on suspicion of theft, the Los Angeles County district attorney, George Gascón, said in a statement.Konnech, which is based in Michigan, develops software to manage election logistics, like scheduling poll workers. Los Angeles County is among its customers.The company has been accused by groups challenging the validity of the 2020 presidential election with storing information about poll workers on servers in China. The company has repeatedly denied keeping data outside the United States, including in recent statements to The New York Times.Mr. Gascón’s office said its investigators had found data stored in China. Holding the data there would violate Konnech’s contract with the county.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Trouble for Nevada Democrats: The state has long been vital to the party’s hold on the West. Now, Democrats are facing potential losses up and down the ballot.Democrats’ House Chances: Democrats are not favored to win the House, but the notion of retaining the chamber is not as far-fetched as it once was, ​​writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Latino Voters: A recent Times/Siena poll found Democrats faring far worse than they have in the past with Hispanic voters. “The Daily” looks at what the poll reveals about this key voting bloc.Michigan Governor’s Race: Tudor Dixon, the G.O.P. nominee who has ground to make up in her contest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is pursuing a hazardous strategy in the narrowly divided swing state: embracing former President Donald J. Trump.The county released few other details about its investigation. But it said in its statement that the charges related only to data about poll workers — and that “the alleged conduct had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results.”“Data breaches are an ongoing threat to our digital way of life,” the district attorney’s office said in the statement. “When we entrust a company to hold our confidential data, they must be willing and able to protect our personal identifying information from theft. Otherwise, we are all victims.”In a statement, a spokesman for Konnech said that the company was trying to learn the details “of what we believe to be Mr. Yu’s wrongful detention,” and that it stood by statements it made in a lawsuit against election deniers who had accused the company of wrongdoing.“Any L.A. County poll worker data that Konnech may have possessed was provided to it by L.A. County and therefore could not have been ‘stolen’ as suggested,” the spokesman said.The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said in an emailed statement that it had cause to believe that personal information on election workers was “criminally mishandled.” It was seeking to extradite Mr. Yu, who lives in Michigan, to Los Angeles.Konnech came under scrutiny this year by several election deniers, including a founder of True the Vote, a nonprofit that says it is devoted to uncovering election fraud. True the Vote said its team had downloaded personal information on 1.8 million American poll workers from a server owned by Konnech and hosted in China. It said it obtained the data by using the server’s default password, which it said was “password,” according to online accounts from people who attended a conference about voter fraud where the claims were made. The group provided no evidence that it had downloaded the data, saying that it had given the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.The claims quickly spread online, with some advocates raising concerns about China’s influence on America’s election system.Claims about Konnech reached Dekalb County in Georgia, which was close to signing a contract with the company. The county’s Republican Party chairwoman, Marci McCarthy, raised concerns during a public comment period at the county’s elections board meeting on Sept. 8, questioning where the company stored and secured its data.Konnech rebutted the claims, telling The New York Times that it had records on fewer than 240,000 workers at the time and that it had detected no data breach. Konnech owned a subsidiary in China that developed and tested software. The company said programmers there always used “dummy” test data. The subsidiary was closed in 2021.Last month, Konnech sued True the Vote and Catherine Engelbrecht, its founder, as well as Gregg Phillips, an election denier who often works with the group. Konnech claimed the group had engaged in defamation, theft and a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — which made it illegal to access a computer without authorization — among other charges.The judge in the case granted Konnech’s request for an emergency restraining order, which required True the Vote to disclose who had allegedly gained access to Konnech’s data. True the Vote released the name in a sealed court filing. “The organization is profoundly grateful to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office for their thorough work and rapid action in this matter,” the group said in a statement.The Los Angeles district attorney’s office said it was unaware of True the Vote’s investigation and said it had no input on the county’s investigation. More