2016 presidential elections update: Sanders’ camp lashes out at DNC for recommending staff member who carried out data breach

The camp of Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders is accusing the Democratic National Committee or DNC of sabotage by recommending data director Josh Uretsky to the presidential candidate's campaign. Uretsky has been identified by the state senator's camp as the staff member who carried out the data breach on the DNC's voter file program earlier this month.

This program, dubbed as the VAN VoteBuilder system, houses vital information regarding each presidential candidate's campaign operations. It contains their schedules, the specific regions they are targeting and the number of votes they are expected to receive in different states.

According to a blog post by NGP VAN, a tech firm that partnered with the DNC to develop the program, the data breach occurred on December 16. Uretsky, the former data director for the Sanders camp, was reportedly able to exploit a glitch in the system which allowed him to access the contents of Hillary Clinton's campaign operations.

Immediately after the incident, Sanders fired Uretsky from the campaign while NGP VAN blocked members of the politician's camp accessing the program. Sanders responded by filing a lawsuit against the DNC due to the incident.

The top advisor of Sanders' campaign stressed that the DNC might be working on some form of conspiracy against the senator since this political party and NGP VAN were the ones who recommended Uretsky for the position of data director. Furthermore, the camp believes NGP VAN's decision to suspend its access to VoteBuilder was DNC's way of helping Clinton's campaign, according to TPM.

"I just think it's utter hypocrisy on their part," the adviser told Yahoo News. "I mean here we are being attacked for the behavior of an individual, which we ultimately fired. We agree he acted improperly, but it's just amazing to me that this...individual that actually caused this trouble in our campaign was recommended by these guys."

On December 18, NGP VAN restored the account of Sanders' campaign on VoteBuilder. However, the camp's lawsuit against the DNC is still ongoing.

Tags

Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Democratic National Committee, 2016 Presidential Elections, State Senator, VoteBuilder, Voter Files, Data Breach

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