AJC:

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 GBI 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.