Voter-data request is target of lawsuits
Privacy concerns raised in court filings
CONCORD, N.H. — President Donald Trump’s commission on election fraud is facing further push-back in the form of lawsuits seeking to block the collection of detailed voter information.
The commission last week asked secretaries of state for voters’ names, birth dates, partial Social Security numbers and other detailed information if it is public under state laws. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia are refusing to comply, while many others plan to provide the limited information that is public under their laws.
On Thursday, two New Hampshire lawmakers joined the local American Civil Liberties Union chapter in suing Secretary of State Bill Gardner.
Gardner, a Democrat and member of Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, plans to submit only what is considered public in New Hampshire: names, addresses, party affiliations and voting history.
He said Thursday that he believes sending the information is legal under a provision that allows the secretary of state to enter into agreements with other states or groups of states for the purpose of comparing duplicate voter information.
The lawsuit, filed by state Rep. Neal Kurk, a Republican, and Democratic state Sen. Bette Lasky, argues that doesn’t apply, because the commission is not a group of states, its purpose is not to compare duplicate voter information and the commission plans to make the information it collects public. The New Hampshire law specifies that such information must be kept “secure.”
The Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center also filed a lawsuit this week arguing that the commission should have completed an assessment of privacy concerns before making the request.
In a court filing Wednesday, the commission said there’s nothing wrong with one government entity sharing public information with another.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center is seeking a federal court order blocking the panel’s collection of the information until it complies. The center pressed its argument in papers filed Thursday, responding to the administration’s claim that the request doesn’t harm privacy because it seeks only publicly available data.
“The commission has asked state election officials to transfer massive amounts of sensitive personal data, protected by state privacy law, to an insecure website without authentication,” attorneys for the organization said. “It is difficult to construct an example of ‘irreparable harm’ that is more self-evident.”
The group’s lawsuit was filed Monday. A hearing on the request for the restraining order is scheduled for today.
Trump created the commission by executive order on May 11, following through on his assertion that voter fraud skewed the popular vote in last year’s presidential election, enabling Democratic rival Hillary Clinton to accrue almost 3 million more votes.
Information for this article was contributed by Holly Ramer and Geoff Mulvihill of The Associated Press and by Andrew Harris of Bloomberg News.