Pa. rebuffs federal request for voter rolls

The state says sensitive information such as Social Security and driver’s license numbers is off limits to federal officials.

By CARTER WALKER
Votebeat

Pennsylvania told the U.S. Justice Department that it will not give federal officials a version of the state’s voter rolls that contains personal information, rebuffing a request from the agency.

“This request, and reported efforts to collect broad data on millions of Americans, represent a concerning attempt to expand the federal government’s role in our country’s electoral process,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in a letter Thursday responding to the request.

Schmidt, a Republican, said that his department could provide a public version of the voter rolls, known as the Full Voter Export, which contains information such as name, age, address, and vote history, but that it was prohibited by law from providing voters’ Social Security and driver’s license numbers.

Earlier this month, the dep artment asked Pennsylvania for a copy of its voter rolls, as well as for information on answers it provided to a national election survey.

Last week, the Justice Department sent a follow-up letter to clarify that it was seeking the version of the rolls containing personally identifiable information.

Such letters have gone out to states around the country, and officials have specified recently that the requests include voters’ Social Security and driver’s license numbers.

It is unclear how far the Justice Department may be willing to press the issue. It recently sued Orange County, California, in part for redacting driver’s license and Social Security numbers when responding to a department request for voter registration information.

Some local groups have criticized the requests. In a statement Tuesday, Lauren Cristella, president of the Philadelphia-based government watchdog group Committee of Seventy, said that