Privacy Watchdog Seeks Temporary Restraining Order Against Trump Election Commission
A privacy watchdog is asking a federal court for a temporary restraining order prohibiting President Donald Trump's election commission from collecting voters' data before completing and publicly releasing a privacy impact assessment. It also claimed the information would be stored in an insecure federal website. The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which is investigating Trump's unsupported claim of massive voter fraud, last week sent a request to all 50 states and the District of Columbia seeking the information, but most state election officials already have said they won't share the data or will share only what's publicly available.
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The election integrity commission and its vice chairs, Vice President Michael Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, have "initiated an unprecedented effort" to collect information about millions of voters without attempting to protect their privacy, said the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which filed the request for the order Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The same day, an EPIC-led coalition sent a letter to the National Association of State Secretaries urging its members not to comply with the request. An NASS spokeswoman said Wednesday her organization hadn't received the letter and doesn't take a position on individual state policy decisions such as securing voter data and the kinds of data protected from disclosure, which vary state by state.
On Wednesday, EPIC sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Trump commission, seeking records about the state data request, communications among commission staff, appointed members and DOJ, plus records on conducting the privacy impact assessment. EPIC said there's an "urgent" need for the information since the commission is expecting state responses by July 14. The commission didn't comment on FOIA request or the temporary restraining order. EPIC President Marc Rotenberg declined to comment further.
In its order, EPIC said the commission's proposed collection violates the E-Government Act, "which requires that agencies establish sufficient protections prior to initiating any new collection of personal information using information technology." The commission's actions also violate the Fifth Amendment right to informational privacy, EPIC said. It said if data is leaked "there is no way to control its spread" and "no way to repair the damage, once done."
A privacy impact assessment is needed to determine how information will be used, with whom it will be shared and how it will be secured, the filing said. The commission also asked that voter data be submitted either via its email address (ElectionIntegrityStaff@ovp.eop.gov) or a government file exchange website, but EPIC said neither is secure. "In fact, an attempt to access the File Exchange system linked in the letter leads to a warning screen with a notification that the site is insecure," the brief said.
In its June 28 letter to states, the commission sought feedback from election officials about improving laws and providing evidence of voter fraud. But the commission also sought publicly available voter roll data including full names, addresses, dates of birth, political party affiliation, the last four digitals of their Social Security numbers (SSNs), voting history from 2006, voter status, any felony convictions and voter registration in another state. As in most other states, Wyoming's Secretary of State Ed Murray (R) said in a statement Monday he won't provide any information due to people's right to privacy, possible "federal overreach" and lack of a "clearly stated purpose" in how the information would be used. Other states like North Carolina's bipartisan state election commission said it would provide only publicly available information as allowed by law, but not SSNs, driver's license data or dates of birth.