Panel’s voter data request on hold over privacy concerns
President CONCORD, N.H. — Donald Trump’s commission on election fraud is telling states to hold off on providing detailed voter information in the face of increasing legal challenges.
The commission had given states until July 14 to provide data including names, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers, but in an email Monday, the panel’s designated officer told states to hold off until a judge rules on a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.
In its initial filings in that case, the commission said it planned to collect the data via a Department of Defense file exchange program. After the privacy group said that system was neither secure nor approved to collect such information, the commission said the director of White House information technology would repurpose an existing system instead, and information already sent by Arkansas through the defense department program would be deleted.
In a filing Tuesday, the privacy group updated its complaint to add the information technology director as a defendant.
“The Commission may not play ‘hide the ball’ with the nation’s voter records,” the group wrote. “With such vast demands for personal information come commensurate responsibilities to provide security and privacy, and to comply with all legal obligations. Surely that is fundamental for an organization charged with promoting ‘election integrity.’”
The commission, which has until July 17 to respond to the amended complaint, has argued that there is nothing wrong with one government entity sharing public information with another and that the privacy group has not made a case that members would be harmed by it.
Trump created the commission in May to investigate his allegation that millions of people voted illegally in 2016. The White House on Monday announced Trump plans to add two members: J. Christian Adams, a columnist for the conservative site PJ Media and author of a book about the “racial agenda” of President Barack Obama’s administration’s Justice Department, and Alan Lamar King, a probate judge in Alabama.
Democrats blast the commission as a biased and bent on voter suppression, and 17 states and the District of Columbia are refusing to comply with the request. Many others plan to provide only limited data.
At a news conference in Washington on Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers said they worry the data will become a clearinghouse for hackers. “The private information of millions and millions of American citizens would be put out there for all to see,” said Sen. Nancy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who joined members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in sending a letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions questioning whether the administration has the legal authority to request voter information.