Jon Ossoff

In a race as close as the congressional runoff between Jon Ossoff and Karen Handel, a few hundred votes can make a big difference. That’s one of the reasons cybersecurity experts are raising alarms about possible hacking into Georgia’s voting system.

“I was absolutely stunned, just the sheer quantity of files I had acquired,” Logan Lamb, a computer science researcher told Politico, recounting how he was able to gather information on the Web site of Georgia’s balloting firm that included all the registration records of the state’s voters and passwords to secure portals where votes are tallied and verified.

He notified the state, and his revelations led the Rocky Mountain Foundation to sue Georgia to stop the use of its current voting machines in the upcoming special election. “The security weaknesses recently exposed would be a welcome mat for bad actors,” the head of the organization told Politico.

Georgia and the balloting firm it uses have defended the integrity of the vote and are fighting the suit in court. But it’s another disturbing revelation, on the heels of news that Russian hackers attempted to tamper with voter registration systems in numerous states during last November’s presidential contest.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon