Trump's Voter Integrity Commission Suspends Data Collection - For Now

So what kind of information was the Trump administration’s voter integrity commission looking for?

The commission reached out to states to get names, partial social security numbers, birthdates, voting history, and whatever other information your local Board of Elections may have on hand.

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The requests began last month, and the immediate reaction from the majority of states was: NO!

At last check, 45 out of 50 states had refused the request.

Now, the commission vice chairman has announced that attempts to collect data have been put on hold, while a judge decides if the commission was following data privacy laws.

Kris W. Kobach also said they will switch the system used to collect states’ data, ditching a U.S. Army website whose security had been questioned, and instead using a White House system that is already set up to be able to handle sensitive personal information.

Data from Arkansas, which was already sent to the Army site, won’t be downloaded, and will instead be deleted, Mr. Kobach said.

The news comes after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a lawsuit to stop the commission. They feel the commission has been negligent by skipping over certain protections for the information of the American people.

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EPIC is asking a judge to issue a temporary restraining order blocking data collection. A hearing was held Friday and the judge is still pondering her ruling.

“Until the Judge rules on the TRO, we request that you hold on submitting any data,” Mr. Kobach wrote to state elections officials.

The goal of the commission was to compare the collected information with what they have on existing federal databases, checking for any who may be on the voter rolls who should not be.

Opponents fear the information will be used to dump infrequent, but otherwise eligible voters from the rolls.

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