Federal judge allows Trump commission's nationwide voter data request to go forward

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Federal judge allows Trump commission's nationwide voter data request to go forward
By Spencer S. Hsu July 24 at 3:36 PM

A federal judge on Monday allowed President Trumps voting commission to go forward with collecting voter data from 50 states and the District, ruling the White House advisory panel is exempt from federal privacy review requirements whatever additional risk it might pose to Americans information.

The ruling averted a public setback for a president who has claimed widespread fraud cost him the popular vote in November. The commissions request for the voting information of about more than 150 million registered voters remains controversial, with many state leaders from both parties voicing objections about its potential to reveal personal information, suppress voter participation and encroach on states oversight of voting laws.

The panels June 28 letter to the states requested that they turn over publicly-available voter roll data, including name, address, date of birth, party registration, partial Social Security numbers and voting, military, felony and overseas history, among other data. ... On July 10, the White House clarified that it had scrapped plans to use a Pentagon-operated website to accept the data and had designed a new system inside the White House to take the submissions.
....

Those changes appeared crucial in a 35-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Washington said. ... The mere increased risk of disclosure stemming from the collection and eventual, anonymized disclosure of already publicly available voter roll information is insufficient to block the data request, she wrote. ... Kollar-Kotelly, who was appointed by president Bill Clinton in 1997, ruled against the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group that sought to block the commissions data request because the panel had not conducted a full privacy impact statement as required by a 2002 federal law for new government electronic data collection systems.
....

Spencer S. Hsu is an investigative reporter, two-time Pulitzer finalist and national Emmy award nominee.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/federal-judge-allows-trump-commissions-nationwide-voter-data-request-to-go-forward/2017/07/24/83fa89c6-635d-11e7-84a1-a26b75ad39fe_story.html

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Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

Federal judge allows Trump commissions nationwide voter data request to go forward, via @hsu_spencer

Link to tweet

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. Sooner Or Later The Request Will Turn Into A Legal Command.

[Still In Wisconsin]

2. Really TRUMP? Finger guns?

God, he's a fucking used car salesman.

[iluvtennis]

3. Well, judge can allow to move forward, but the states are saying NO, so I'm cool with it.

[riversedge]

5. This will have to go to court if states absolutely refuse I think.

......But Monday’s ruling removed one legal obstacle even as the commission faces other political head winds. The commission had asked states to hold off submitting the sweeping voter data the panel had requested pending the court decision.

At least 44 states have indicated that they won’t provide all their voter data, with some saying they would give nothing and others offering what information they could under state laws.

The vice president’s office has said 20 states have agreed to share at least some data and 16 more are reviewing the request.

Trump has said that widespread voter fraud cost him the popular vote in November, although critics say the claim is unsubstantiated and a pretext for federal laws to suppress voter participation, including by racial minority groups and poor people.

[SergeStorms]

6. How much money.......

is being wasted on this bullshit just to satisfy tRump's stupifyingly massive ego? They'll just manipulate the data or, what's even more true to their form, outright LIE about the results to PROVE tRump won the popular vote.

There's no money for healthcare, but there's carte blanch for tRump's ego trip.

SICKENING, LITERALLY.

[rockfordfile]

4. This is messed up

They're essentially attacking our country with this crap. Not to mention that the judge was appointed by of all people Clinton.

[SergeStorms]

7. Actually.......

the judge was first appointed to the D.C. court by Ronnie Rayguns. She graduated from a Catholic University, and I'm wondering if she is Opus Dei, ala Antonin Scalia. That would certainly fit Rayguns M.O.

I think Clinton nominated her for U.S. District Court in his "reaching across the aisle" period. She's definitely not a liberal minded Judge.