This afternoon, on Oct. 21, Johnson County transferred the PollChief election worker management system from Konnech Inc. to servers under Johnson County Government’s exclusive control.

We added this extra layer of security at the local level to prevent unauthorized access to the software and our data. We found no evidence of malicious activity.

Without our approval, Konnech provided a third-party vendor access to PollChief for software development and technical support. Less than 10 percent (approximately 825 out of 9,800) of Johnson County election workers’ records in PollChief contained a driver’s license number, which is considered personal identifying information under Kansas statute. The county will contact those individuals whose driver’s license number was exposed to an unauthorized third-party.

When Johnson County learned that Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was arrested as part of a Los Angeles County investigation involving the PollChief software, we immediately began assessing the potential risk to our election worker management system. On Oct. 13, Yu was charged with criminal acts in Los Angeles County. Allegations included Konnech sending personal identifying information of L.A. County election workers to non-U.S. based third-party contractors.

As a reminder, the PollChief system is an election worker management and administration system.  It is not and has never been connected to the county’s voting machines or any vote tabulation, voter registration, financial or any county systems. The Johnson County contract does not use the full functionality of the software and does not include payroll.

We continue to focus on the security of our voting systems and stand by the integrity of Johnson County elections.