Police investigating how Michigan voting machines were sold online

bargain at goodwill

Ean Hutchison, a 35-year-old Uber driver from Miamisburg, Ohio, has an eye for technology and an impressive record as a seller on eBay. He trolls his web looking for deals on his computer parts such as motherboards and graphics his cards and resells them on eBay for a profit. Often he sells to similarly tech-minded people who are building or upgrading their own computers.

“There’s a knack for finding hidden gems really cheap and making a quick profit,” says Hutchison, who often finds them at online thrift stores and Goodwill.

It was a recent troll on the Goodwill website in Michigan that Hutchison said he stumbled upon one of those gems.

“AVALUE TECHNOLOGY touch panel SID-15V-Z37-B1R” read all ads. A photo accompanying the ad showed a large monitor, possibly a touchscreen, that looked like slots for keycards and credit cards. A handwritten sticker on the base of the monitor read “Colfax”. Goodwill was selling it for his $7.99.

For the uninitiated, it can be difficult to know what this product is. But why are there slots for cards?

Hutchison knew what he was looking at.

It was part of the election hardware that was used in the Michigan election, he reasoned, given the location listed.

“I didn’t even know I was going to sell it, let alone donate it to Goodwill,” Hutchison told CNN.

“Get a piece of history!”

A machine — a ballot marking device — arrived in the mail, which Hutchison later posted on eBay. He set his eBay auction bids to start at $250, but he gave potential buyers the option to skip the auction if he paid $1,200 upfront.

“Get a piece of history!” I read Hutchison’s eBay listing. “This voting machine was one of thousands of machines used in the 2020 US presidential election and was part of his one of many lawsuits against Dominion, which was destroyed.”

At his apartment in Connecticut, 700 miles away, Harri Hursti saw the ad.

Considered one of the leading election machine security experts, Hursti organizes an event each August where hackers are granted access to voting machines in order to identify and fix potential vulnerabilities. is held in Las Vegas on As a result, Hursti has essentially become a voting machine collector, although the machines he can usually afford are old and retired.

Hursti said the ad was unusual because it claimed to be selling a device that it believed might still be in use in Michigan.

Hursti bought the machine outright for $1,200. After it was delivered to his home last week, he reached out to Michigan’s secretary of state, who oversees Michigan’s elections. He says he was instructed not to open the box the machine was in. Because law enforcement may need to wipe your fingerprints.

A few days later, an official at the Secretary of State emailed Frusti. “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention,” the email read. “We have determined that this device was manufactured in one of our jurisdictions, which is now reporting the device to law enforcement as stolen. ”

It is unclear how the voting machine ended up in Goodwill. It was delivered from Goodwill’s base in Cadillac, Michigan, to Goodwill Northern Michigan’s e-commerce division, a Goodwill spokesperson told CNN. Goodwill said in a statement that his team members process thousands of donations a week in northern Michigan and is working with authorities on investigating the device.

A County Wexford clerk, who covers Cadillac and includes a town called Colfax, like the label on the machine in question, told CNN they were looking for answers.

When asked about the security concerns expressed by state officials, secretary Alaina Nyman said, “I’m just as worried, if not more.

Colfax Township Clerk Becky Stoddard declined to comment specifically on the device, citing an ongoing police investigation, but she said she kept the election equipment locked. He added that he does not believe in conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines.

“I’ve never had a problem,” she says, having worked as a clerk for 22 years.

security and conspiracy theories

In some states, voting machines may only be used a few days a year or every other year. But their secure storage is essential to ensuring the integrity of American elections.

Michigan, for example, has more than 1,500 different voting jurisdictions across 83 counties, each with its own clerk responsible for security of voting machines, according to the Secretary of State.

Michigan Secretary of State Joslyn Benson said in an interview with CNN in Detroit on Thursday that voters should be confident that the state’s elections are safe.

Her team said they contacted law enforcement immediately after learning about the machine on eBay, noting that multiple checks of the machine were made around Election Day to ensure accurate results. did.

This is a point repeated by Hursti, who is trying to find vulnerabilities in the electoral system for a living.

He told CNN that the appearance of Michigan voting machines on eBay has raised concerns about how the machines are stored, but the real threat is what election conspiracy theorists can do.

Over the last two years, people seeking to prove false claims that the 2020 election was stolen have sought or obtained unauthorized access to the election system.

Michigan police are investigating a series of voting machine violations in multiple counties across the state last year.

“What you really have is individuals who don’t seem to understand the electoral process or the art of election security trying to gain access to machines to perpetuate disinformation.

As for the machine that showed up at Goodwill, how it got there is a mystery the police are trying to figure out – as of Thursday night, Hursty still has this vital infrastructure in his home, and someone is trying to figure it out. I was waiting to pick up the