Election watchdogs are raising privacy concerns.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In late September, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against several states, including Pennsylvania, for failure to produce their statewide voter registration lists. The lawsuit has election watchdogs concerned about the DOJ’s request. They said that information is protected by the states and raises privacy concerns.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press release :“Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections.” She adds: “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible and secure, and states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this department of justice in court.”
According to correspondence we received between one state and the DOJ, the Justice Department also requested states to produce driver’s license numbers and social security numbers for all of their voters. Both Republican and Democratic-led states are rejecting the administration’s request for this information.
“Sensitive fields like social security numbers, driver’s license number and dates of birth, which they specify they wanted, all of which are protected under state laws,” said Becker. “Which constitute the holy grail of identity theft and the states are very protective of their citizens, their voters and that sensitive data.”
Becker said the DOJ’s reasons for requesting this sensitive data is not entirely clear and the legal justifications for it are weak. There are concerns that the administration is looking to increase their authority and reduce state’s autonomy on how they run elections.
“The federal law does not authorize the DOJ to seize the level data, particularly the sensitive level data from the states,” said David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “They claim the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act entitled them to this information. That is simply not true.”
Becker also adds “the federal government does not get to tell a state how to run its program of list maintenance.”
Al Schmidt, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, sent us this statement:
“The Justice Department’s demand for voters’ personal information, including driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers, is unprecedented and unlawful, and we will vigorously fight the federal government’s overreach in court. The Department of State will aggressively defend the privacy of Pennsylvania voters against this baseless lawsuit, and as Secretary of the Commonwealth, I have an obligation to protect the personal information that Pennsylvania voters entrust us with, and I take that obligation extremely seriously.”
We reached out to the DOJ on the lawsuits and tried to get clarification on why they are requesting this information, but there was an automated message saying that due to the shutdown, there could be delays in producing a response.