Voters jittery over feds’ info cull

Elections officials seek to quell fears about data collection

TALLAHASSEE — The Trump administration’s push to get voters’ personal information from states is on hold for now, but the battle over electoral laws and rules is just beginning and still sowing confusion among some voters.

Michael Ertel, Seminole County’s supervisor of elections, said requests by voters to unregister to avoid having their information culled by the federal government have gone down since the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, a panel set up by President Donald Trump, asked states to hold off on sending voters’ data pending a lawsuit in Washington, D.C.

Even so, Ertel has set up a question-and-answer page on the voteseminole.org website to tell voters

what information is public and what could be shared by the state. Social Security numbers and drivers’ license numbers? No, those are protected. For whom you voted? No, that won’t be given out.

But the state has agreed to give voters’ names, addresses, whether they voted in elections going back to 2006, citizenship status, military status and political party affiliation. That information, however, is being held until the Washington lawsuit, filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is resolved.

In addition, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the move in a federal court in Miami earlier this month.

Even if the information is given out, unregistering won’t protect voters’ data. The Florida Department of State will give out data based on June 30 voter rolls, so if a person is registered then, their information is already in the system.

Some voters, though, remain jittery about having their personal data collected by the federal government.

Orange County Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said 10 people have come in person to unregister, and more have called asking about it. “They were just doing it to make a statement,” Cowles said, and indicated they would re-register before Election Day.

Ertel has said 15 people expressed interest in coming off the voter rolls, but he’s been able to talk them out of it.

“So many before us fought, in the fields of battle, politics, government and beyond, to ensure this far into our nation’s future that you would still have the privilege of casting your vote. Don’t let an action you disagree with have the effect of silencing your most powerful tool to change it — your vote,” Ertel posted on his website.

Trump’s commission met in person for the first time Wednesday. Trump said the panel will work to gather information on circumstances of voter fraud — voting by noncitizens, manipulating absentee ballots, voting under the names of dead people.

“All public officials have a profound responsibility to protect the integrity of the vote, we have no choice,” Trump said. “We want to make America great again, we have to protect the integrity of the vote and our voters.

“This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it’s an American issue.”

Democrats, though, suspect that the commission wants to remove large numbers of voters from the rolls, or chip away at federal voting laws, they say.

“The Commission should explore increasing access to voting, not perpetuating the false and damaging notion that massive voter fraud exists in our nation’s elections. We will fiercely oppose any attempt by this administration to suppress the vote and undermine the protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the National Voter Registration Act, the Voting Rights Act and other important voter protection laws,” four Democratic Congress members wrote in a letter to the panel this week.

“This is a not a theoretical thing,” said Orlando resident David Porter, 62, who unregistered during a July 10 demonstration at the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office. “Voter suppression has always been about removing black people’s rights and ability to vote.

“We have now a president who as a candidate talked about rigged elections and I think it’s ironic that he would turn around and try to actually rig elections himself.”