{"id":2538,"date":"2025-10-15T21:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/2538\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T21:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:22:08","slug":"doj-sues-pennsylvania-for-voter-information-election-watchdogs-raise-concerns-on-privacy-washington-d-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/2538\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Sues Pennsylvania for Voter Information, Election Watchdogs Raise Concerns on Privacy | Washington D.C."},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 In late September, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against several states, including Pennsylvania, for failure to produce their statewide voter registration lists<\/a>. The lawsuit has election watchdogs concerned about the DOJ\u2019s request. They said that information is protected by the states and raises privacy concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a> said in a press release :\u201cClean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections.\u201d She adds: \u201cEvery state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible and secure, and states that don\u2019t fulfill that obligation will see this department of justice in court.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to correspondence we received between one state and the DOJ, the Justice Department also requested states to produce driver\u2019s license numbers and social security numbers for all of their voters. Both Republican and Democratic-led states are rejecting the administration\u2019s request for this information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSensitive fields like social security numbers, driver\u2019s license number and dates of birth, which they specify they wanted, all of which are protected under state laws,\u201d said Becker. \u201cWhich constitute the holy grail of identity theft and the states are very protective of their citizens, their voters and that sensitive data.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Becker said the DOJ\u2019s 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\u2019s autonomy on how they run elections. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal law does not authorize the DOJ to seize the level data, particularly the sensitive level data from the states,\u201d said David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. \u201cThey 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Becker also adds \u201cthe federal government does not get to tell a state how to run its program of list maintenance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Al Schmidt, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, sent us this statement:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Justice Department\u2019s demand for voters\u2019 personal information, including driver\u2019s license numbers and Social Security numbers, is unprecedented and unlawful, and we will vigorously fight the federal government\u2019s 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 In late September, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against several states, including Pennsylvania, for failure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2288,28,30,29,2287,2286,2289],"class_list":["post-2538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bureau","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-u-s-capitol","tag-washington-d-c","tag-washington-d-c-bureau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}