Ashwin Ramaswami spent the last three years working for the federal government to protect elections from hackers. Now, he’s targeting what he says is a greater threat to democracy: his state senator.
Ramaswami, a 24-year-old Democrat, is challenging Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still, a Republican who was indicted last year alongside former President Donald Trump for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. That same year, Ramaswami started an internship with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where he worked to build a program that helped local election officials protect their websites from malicious attacks.
Ramaswami, who was a student at Stanford University at the time but had moved home to Johns Creek, Georgia, because of the pandemic, continued his work as a paid, part-time employee with CISA while continuing his undergraduate studies and later attending law school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. After Still was indicted, Ramaswami said he decided to quit that job and run for office.
“What I realized is cybersecurity is really important, and we need to continue doing it, but the biggest threat to our election security — it’s not just hackers hacking into our systems. It’s politicians falsely claiming that the election is rigged when it’s not,” Ramaswami said in an interview.
Two years before being elected to the state Senate, Still signed a certificate claiming to be a “duly elected and qualified” presidential elector in Georgia on behalf of then-President Trump, even though Trump had lost the state in the 2020 election. Still, who also reportedly served as the secretary for the meeting of fake electors, was indicted last year on seven charges, including a racketeering charge. He has pleaded not guilty.
Democrats are hopeful the suburban Atlanta district is competitive in part due to its fast-growing Asian community, though Still won it by 13 points in 2022.
Ramaswami, who will be the…
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