Florida reinforces stance on voter information

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner reiterated this week that Florida is only sending publicly available documents to a federal commission seeking voter information.

“Florida will absolutely not provide any information that is not already available to the public,” Detzner said in a prepared statement.

President Donald Trump’s 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. At least 44 other states have declined to comply with at least part of the commission’s request.

Democrats have decried it as a possible move to remove Democratic voters from the rolls, and some Republicans have expressed concern about giving private information to the federal government.

A coalition of civil rights organizations and Florida residents filed a lawsuitMonday in the Southern District of Florida against Detzner and a White House commission, accusing them of potentially violating laws in an attempt to build a nationwide voter database.

The suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, the Florida Immigrant Coalition, former state Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, TampaCity Councilman Mike Suarez, Joshua Simmons of Broward County and Brenda Shapiro of Miami-Dade County.

The legal challenge contends the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity violated federal requirements about how the panel should conduct its business and how voters’ records should be handled.

“The executive order does